


Our Souls Knew Each Other All Along

by ShellyNelsonLahey



Category: Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Jeronica, Riverdale Rewrite, barchie, cheronica
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:21:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21855562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShellyNelsonLahey/pseuds/ShellyNelsonLahey
Summary: *Riverdale rewriteThis story is about a small town and the people who live there, who work and fall in love there, who get married and have children, and, yes, even die there. From a distance—or from the window of a train rushing by—it presents itself like so many other small towns all over the world: safe, decent, innocent… but that’s only how people want it to be. Or think it is because they’re young and they don’t know any better, or maybe they’re old and they just don’t want to know any better.At a certain point, though, you look close enough and you start seeing the shadows underneath and sometimes… the shadows take over. And you’re living in this place you don’t recognize anymore, and you’re feeling a lot of different things, but safe is definitely not one of them.The name of this town is Riverdale.The citizens residing in Riverdale were still talking about the “July Fourth tragedy” on the last day of summer vacation, while a new mystery rolled into town.
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Betty Cooper, Betty Cooper x Archie Andrews, Veronica Lodge x Jughead Jones - Relationship, Veronica Lodge/Jughead Jones
Comments: 21
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Jeronica Nation](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Jeronica+Nation).



> Hey! So, this is a rewrite of Riverdale. I always have these ideas of how the show should have gone so I decided to make my own version from the very beginning from everybody’s point of view. My friend @rhaenyra_Snow has a rewrite as well but it’s just Jeronica scenes. It’s incredible, and called In Cold Blood so go check it out!
> 
> In this, Jeronica and Barchie will be at the forefront. I go along with the show so I’m not entirely sure what will be happening, but sadly Choni won’t be in this (yet) since I’m on season one still but I am desperately to give us the friendships and relationships we all crave! I really hope you enjoy this, it’s been really fun re-watching and adding/taking away from what happened and making it my own.

This story is about a small town and the people who live there, who work and fall in love there, who get married and have children, and, yes, even die there. From a distance—or from the window of a train rushing by—it presents itself like so many other small towns all over the world: safe, decent, innocent… but that’s only how people want it to be. Or think it is because they’re young and they don’t know any better, or maybe they’re old and they just don’t want to know any better.

At a certain point, though, you look close enough and you start seeing the shadows underneath and sometimes… the shadows take over. And you’re living in this place you don’t recognize anymore, and you’re feeling a lot of different things, but safe is definitely not one of them.

The name of this town is Riverdale.

On the Fourth of July, just after dawn, Jason and Cheryl Blossom drove out to Sweetwater River for an early morning boat ride. The next thing everybody knows, Dilton Doiley leads Riverdale’s Boy Scout Troop on a bird watching expedition when they come upon Cheryl by the river’s edge.

Riverdale Police dragged Sweetwater River for Jason’s body, and never found it. So, a week later, the Blossom family buried an empty casket and Jason’s death was ruled an accident as the story that Cheryl told made the rounds: Cheryl dropped a glove in the water and Jason reached down to get it, accidentally tipping the boat. He panicked and drowned.

As for the citizens residing in Riverdale, they were still talking about the “July Fourth tragedy” on the last day of summer vacation, while a new mystery rolled into town.

* * *

Veronica Lodge rolled down the window of her mother’s black cadillac to gaze upon the apartment building her and her mother were going to be moving into. In gold, hard-to-read capital letters, “The Pembrooke” gleamed above the address of the building below a large, open-arched entryway. The building looked old on the outside, but from what she could see on the inside, it catered to their more affluent tastes.

Stepping out from the car, Veronica and her mother, Hermione Lodge, stood at the curb looking up at the building. Hermione sighed, rubbing her daughter’s right shoulder because she knew this was going to be a tough transition for her. Fabulous, bright New York to quaint, drab Riverdale? Veronica didn’t grow up in the town like her mother did, which meant she wouldn’t appreciate it as much as she did, and to add onto that, the change would not be easy. “Now brace yourself… the apartment is small, a pied-a-terre, but as I say, quality always.”

Veronica nodded at the saying she had heard for her entire life, emitting a soft sigh before following after her mother into the apartment building. It was odd for her, not used to the dreary feel of a small town, but walking into the lobby of The Pembrooke felt like a breath of familiar, expensive and perfumed air. The lobby was exquisite; crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, one above the receptionist desk and another in a small lounge off to the side. The tables adorning the lobby were glossy and sleek, which added to the “rich” scene of it all.

From behind the receptionist’s desk, the young Lodge watched curiously as her mother smiled warmly at the man who greeted them by the entrance. “Ms. Hermione! Welcome home.”

“Smithers! Oh, you are a sight for sore eyes,” Hermione kissed the side of his left cheek, and Veronica noted how her mother seemed to loosen up as she spoke to him. Normally, she was always on guard and serious, and seeing her like this was a rarity.

“How was the ride?”

“No traffic, thank God.” Turning her head to motion towards Veronica, Hermione smiled brightly. “Smithers, I would like to introduce you to my daughter, Veronica.”

Veronica stepped forward confidently, reaching her hand out to shake his. Now conversing with Smithers, Veronica could see why her mother vibed so well with him. She could tell he was a sweet man, loyal and kind, and maybe somebody you could share your secrets with and he wouldn’t tell a soul. “It’s a pleasure, miss.”

With a polite nod and the corners of her lips tugging upwards, she greeted back, “hi.”

“I’ll get the bags,” Smithers exclaimed, beginning to rush behind the women to get their bags from the car. However, he stopped just before the door. “Oh, and would you like some menus, ma’am, so you can order in?”

“Oh, no… I have been craving one of Pop Tate’s cheeseburgers since noon. Is his Chock’lit Shoppe still open?”

Veronica tilted her head at the odd name, and being from New York and in the upper elite, she only ever went out to five star restaurants that had gourmet burgers. And, still, even then the food item was the last on her mind. Her mother told her that it was messy and not to be eaten in front of somebody she was trying to impress, so her mother craving some shoppe’s burgers was odd to Veronica. But she was intrigued, and excited to try something new. “What is a Chock’lit Shoppe and why does it sell burgers?”

Hermione sucked in her mauve lips to keep from laughing, meeting Smithers’ humorous gaze. “You’ll find out, mija.”

* * *

On the darkening, dawning Elm Street, Betty Cooper blasted a cheery pop song while she got ready to see her childhood crush, Archie Andrews, on the last night of summer vacation. Nearing seven o’clock, Betty swiped a blush-red lipstick over her lips, shimmied a thin, black mascara brush over her eyelashes, and fixed her pretty blonde hair into a high ponytail.

With her was her best friend, Kevin Keller, who laid stomach-down on her neat bed helping her figure out what to wear to impress Archie… and scrolling through Bumble on his phone. Glancing up to see the product of her makeup, he beamed, “are you excited? Nervous?”

Betty spun around in her chair, the brightest, most excited grin bursting onto her lips. Without choosing what to wear yet, she was still covered in her pink matching lace undergarments, and normally that would be a no-no with another guy in the room, but Kevin was not only someone who wouldn’t dare take advantage, but he was gay, and obviously not into her in any way. So despite her mother being a typical worried, uptight mother, Kevin was the only boy allowed in Betty’s room with the door closed.

“Both,” the blonde exhaled, the nervousness sneaking around underneath her skin. “I haven’t seen him all summer.”

“Which is why nerves are acceptable, but we agreed, Betty. It’s time,” Kevin reminded, continuing on as she searched through her desk for her brushes. “You like him, he likes you.”

Suddenly, pointing a makeup brush at the boy with an accusatory look, Betty raised her eyebrows. “Well, then why, Kevin, hasn’t he ever said or done anything?”

“Because Archie’s swell… but like most millennial straight guys, he needs to be told what he wants. So tell him, finally!” Too excited and bursting with energy to stay sitting down on her bed, Kevin bit down on his lip as a text from his Bumble match, Max, vibrated in his jeans. He already knew what it was. Resting against the ledge of the window, he was prepared to look down at the car where Max sat, waiting patiently for Kevin’s friend-duties to be over, but instead found his focus at Betty’s neighbor, Archie Andrews, and his moving blinds.

“Well, we’ll see. I mean, it depends—”

“Oh… my… God.” Kevin gaped, watching in awe as Archie was getting ready as well, and damn if he was into men and not Betty, Kevin would have attempted a move by now. Imagine having somebody that hot be into you. You’d be the luckiest person on the planet, really.

“What?” Betty, at first, thought that something had come up on his phone. And while she tended to stay away from drama because she had enough of it surrounding what happened to her sister, Polly, she was curious. Although, her worry only increased as she realized Kevin was leaning towards the window, peeking through the curtains that hid nothing.

Her window was, coincidentally and perfectly, in front of Archie’s. As she hoisted herself up from the chair she sat in, Kevin turned to gape at her. “Game changer: Archie got hot. He’s got abs now!”

Betty stood beside Kevin and leaned against her windowframe, mouth dropping as she managed to sneak a small, quick peek of the abs Kevin was mentioning before Archie slid a gray shirt on over his torso. She held back a chuckle at how he was on his phone, multitasking. Nothing about the boy she loved had changed.

“Six more reasons for you to take that ginger bull by the horns tonight.”

The two marveled for a few more moments until Archie left the view of the window, forcing the two to shuffle back to their previous positions: Kevin on the bed, and Betty quickly checking her makeup in the mirror before sauntering over to her closet.

The first outfit she pulled out and held over her body for Kevin to see was a blue, long-sleeved shirt that went white on the arms, and some jeans to match. “What about this?”

Kevin tossed his phone to the side and stared at her with a narrow gaze. “Betty…”

“Well, that’s a no,” Betty mumbled, turning back to the closet while she put the hangers back where they were. “What about this?” Showing off a white blouse with little red roses covering the entire shirt, she was met with yet another pointed look. “Fine, what about—”

“You know what, how about you let me sort through your closet, yeah? I have enough experience inside one,” he joked, making himself laugh. With a side glance to the Cooper’s dismissive unappreciative huff, he ignored it and used his hips to push her away. “Okay… no. No. No. Definitely not. Please, burn this in the fireplace… ooh. Maybe.”

“Can you stop lowkey insulting my clothing style and just find something cute, please? I have to be at Pop’s in thirty minutes and I want to get there early so I can order for the both of us,” Betty whined, crossing her arms and huffing as if she were a child.

Waving his arms around for dramatic effect, Kevin rolled his head along with his words. “Fine, fine. Chill out.” Sorting through her closet more seriously, he bit down on his lip in concentration. “Here. Try this. It’s cute and totally tells Archie that you see this as a date and not just two best friends catching up.”

Gently sliding the pink blouse off from the hanger in Kevin’s hands, Betty cooed with a quick gasp. “And then some jeans to go along with it, and your equally-as-pink sandals will go well.”

“Sandals? It may be the last night of summer, but it’s night and freezing cold,” Betty snickered, “however, I do have those cute flats that I bought a couple of months ago!”

“Oh, that sounds way more your style, and more fitting for the weather,” Kevin nodded, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Do you want me to walk you to Pop’s? It’s on the way to where i’m going.”

“No, i’ll be fine,” Betty waved him off. “It’s only going to take me, like, ten minutes. Fifteen at most. Thank you, though.”

“Well, if you need anything just text me, okay?”

“Yeah, of course. Same goes for you too, Kev. I don’t know where you’re going because you refuse to tell me and use the Cooper-Keller secrecy pact, but know that I will be worrying until I see you tomorrow.”

“I got it, Betty. I love you, and i’ll see you tomorrow for our first day of school. Sigh, I really don’t want to go…” Kevin sulked, puffing out his bottom lip dramatically.

“Me either, but it’s the first day of sophomore year and it’s time for a fresh start.”

“Well, good luck on your date with Archie!”

“Good luck on whatever you’re doing, love you, too!” Betty shouted after him. “Wait, and it’s not exactly a date…” But the boy was already bouncing down her staircase and therefore wouldn’t have heard her correct him. “I want it to be, but would Archie?”

* * *

“So, what was the highlight?” Archie asked, eyebrows raised in intrigue as he leaned forward.

“Of my internship?” Betty questioned, her bright smile gracing her soft lips. She knew he was genuinely interested in what she had to say, because even when there were multiple distracting sounds bouncing around their favorite diner, his sharp, friendly gaze never left her cute blue eyes. “The Toni Morrison book release party I organized, by far.”

“Really? That sounds awesome, you getting to organize a book release party for your literary idol. Did you get to meet her?” Archie smiled gently, watching his best friend in awe as she was almost bursting at the seams with excitement. It was what he loved most about her, she was so happy and energetic, and even if he wasn’t in the greatest of moods, she knew exactly what to do. He loved her so much, but he wasn’t sure if she loved him like he did to her. And the last thing he wanted would be to destroy their friendship.

“I did! Toni came up to me at the end of the night and says, ‘don’t rush this time, Betty. It goes by so fast at your age. One summer can change everything’,” Betty paused to see the redhead’s reaction, lacing her fingers together as she watched for any sign of, well, any emotion on the face she memorized by heart growing up with him.

Archie laughed gently, “wow, that’s so true.”

Betty leaned forward, tilting her head. “How was working for your dad?”

“It was pouring concrete every day, all day long,” Archie sighed, but although it was hard work he could always find something good in everything. He believes that rubbed off on him from Betty. “To pass the time I would start composing these poems in my head. At night, i’d go home and write them all down.”

The blonde furrowed her eyebrows, “wait, but you don’t even like reading poetry, Arch.”

“Okay, well, they weren’t really poems, Betts. They were song lyrics,” Archie expressed lowly, turning his head around as if to make sure that nobody was listening in. “Working on them made me feel like… like i’d finally broken through to something real about my life and what I should be trying to do with it.”

“That’s incredible, Arch,” Betty felt truly happy for him that he had found something he loved to do. “So, you want to pursue…” She trailed off, though, unsure what exactly he wanted to do with his life. Write lyrics? Sing? Play guitar?

“Music. Starting this year, tomorrow,” Archie finished, noting how proud Betty looked for him. Even if she didn’t understand it, she would always be supportive and he appreciated that so, so much.

“That’s amazing!” Betty exclaimed, leaning back into the booth as she slipped into helpful-best-friend mode. Knowing Archie as well as the back of her hand, she knew that he would probably need help organizing it all; he needed someone to make sure he thought about, ‘and what’s next’ or else he might drop it. Considering how excited he is about this, about writing music, she didn’t want him to let it go. But she did have to make sure he knew what he was doing, and that he was ready. “Are you going to ask the music teacher about tutoring you? Since she’s new we don’t really know her but I assume she’s up for the job.”

Archie shrugged, “i’m not sure. Maybe?”

“And what about football, can you do both?”

“I’ll try out, at least.”

“Well, have you told your dad?”

Archie was growing annoyed with how she was asking question after question. He knew it was coming from a place of concern, but sometimes Betty didn’t know when to stop pushing. “No… i’m trying to figure everything out first.”

Betty nodded, taking a couple of mental steps back. “Well, i’d love to hear your songs sometime.”

“Yeah?” Archie blinked in surprise, chuckling nervously at the idea of the girl he liked listening to songs he wrote about her. He just wouldn’t let her know that most were about her.

“Yeah!” Betty urged, laughing as Archie cast his gaze down at the table as if he was suddenly self conscious. Normally the boy was confident and cool about everything but this was how she could tell he was really into it. He was afraid that he sucked, that the one girl whose opinion mattered most wouldn’t like it. But Betty would never put him down, even if his skills made her want to rip out her eardrums. She was a supportive best friend and nothing was going to change that.

“Well, i’m finishing a couple of demos tonight,” Archie said, nodding in affirmation.

“That’s great, I can’t wait to hear them!” Betty beamed, staring at the boy who watched her with what she assumed was the same lovey-dovey eyes she constantly tried to hide from him. Kevin was right, she needed to make her move and right now seemed like the perfect time to bring it up. “Um, also… I’ve been thinking. About us, Archie, and our friendship, and how I think it’s time that we talk about the feelings between us. It’s clear that both of us like one another, and… Archie?”

Betty, upset he wasn’t paying attention to her, furrowed her eyebrows and turned to see what had gathered his attention. A tall, beautiful skinny woman wearing jean shorts and a red low-cut tank top. She definitely didn’t condone slut shaming, but it was clear that she knew she was beautiful and she wanted to flaunt it. And Betty hated that the one time she tried to dress up for Archie and tell him her feelings, he was into somebody else. She envied the woman, and as she turned back around to face Archie, she gulped down the hurt she felt when she noticed the enamor in his stature.

"Who's that? She's very young, and very pretty,” Betty smiled supportively through clenched teeth, then laughed, “but you're drooling, Arch. Close your mouth, or you’ll catch flies."

Archie, oddly enough, seemed even more excited to talk about this topic than him about music. "I may have been up to a couple other things over the summer... she's a girl I met, a bit older because she has her driver's license already, and she's into music just like I am. Her name is Gracie. She's... amazing, isn’t she?" Archie breathed out, watching the brown haired woman like a dog who sees their owner coming towards the house through the window. He was obsessed.

Betty snickered gently to hide her jealousy and the hurt that crossed her mind. Here she was trying to ask out Archie, while he was here falling for someone else. Toni Morrison was right, one summer could change everything. "Yeah. She's... something."

"So, uh, what were you going to tell me?" Archie ripped his gaze from the woman as she sat down on the other side of Pop's Chock’Lit Shoppe. He was here with Betty, and he was going to focus on her. She was about to tell him something, too, so he knew him temporarily losing his focus must have twinged her feelings a bit. He even perked up and leaned towards her to show Betty that he was focused solely on her now.

Betty simply shook her head at his inquiry, "oh, nothing. Just... started talking about how I really appreciate having you as a best friend. I couldn't ask for anyone else, Arch."

“Oh. Well, I couldn’t ask for anyone else, either, Betts,” Archie playfully puffed out his bottom lip and reached across the table to grab a hold of her hand in a friendly manner. “You’re the only friend I really have.”

Pulling away from his grasp—no matter how good it felt—with furrowed eyebrows, Betty gave him a confused look. “What about Jughead?”

“We had a falling out…”

“Over what?” Betty gasped, shaking her head of the thoughts that urged her to fix it. Whatever happened between them, it was between Jughead and Archie and she shouldn’t butt into it. She was friends with both of them, which is also why she didn’t want to meddle. It would only make things worse.

“Can we not talk about this right now? I just want to grab some food and eat and talk about our summers,” Archie sighed.

Betty bit down on her lower lip. “How about, instead, we order some shakes and fries to go and we just… walk around town or something. Talk about anything and everything?”

Archie shook his head in distaste, “Betts, do you know how cold it is outside?”

“Alright, fine, how about we go back to one of our houses and watch a movie?” Betty suggested, raising her eyebrows. “We can buy a package of cookies to bake, too… and we can drizzle chocolate on them… and buy a gallon of chocolate milk…”

“Okay, okay,” Archie gave in with a laugh, knowing that those were his favorite things and if she said any more his mouth would begin watering again. “But i’m picking the movie.”

“As long as it’s not Remember the Titans,” Betty pointed a playful finger at the redhead. “It’s a great, inspirational movie, Arch, but i’ve seen it about twenty times.”

“We’ll figure it out when I win our argument over who’s house we’re going to,” Archie smiled, wiggling his eyebrows. “I always win.”

“Mmhm, do you?”

“Uh, yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t, but let’s go before it gets too late and we’ll have to finish the movie tomorrow.”

Archie smirked, mumbling, “that means I win.”

Betty glared at him—of course not with genuine contempt—and rolled her eyes. They could have this argument later, not in a crowded diner. “Whatever.”

* * *

Jughead Jones had trouble figuring out what to put all of his thoughts and energy into for his next book. He could write about the seemingly quaint town of Riverdale’s residents, about how they are all harboring dark, dirty secrets, but that seemed too… cliché for his taste. He could write about the feud filled with misplaced anger and misinformation between the north and south side of Riverdale, but that was much too personal for his writing mood at the moment. After his falling out with Archie Andrews, he had written about their quarrel and once he had taken his frustration out through his words, the mood for writing close, personal matters faded, too.

He could write about the death of Jason Blossom, and while he didn’t really know the kid other than from what he had heard throughout school, he felt it would be disrespectful. And asking the Blossom family if they would allow him to write about Jason was a whole other story—they would much rather die themselves than let a boy who didn’t even have a genuine roof over his head place himself in the middle of an investigation. No one was entirely sure if it was a murder or not considering they hadn’t yet finished his autoposy, but this was Riverdale. Whether anyone would think about it was very different to who would actually go through with it.

The light tinkling of the bell to Pop’s Chock’Lit Shoppe brought Jughead out of his mind, the bright lights adorning the establishment fading into focus as he blinked a couple of times to readjust his eyes from the blue light of his laptop. The neon signs illuminated the face of a mystery who Jughead felt the urge to unravel—he hadn’t been sure of what to write about, but seeing her, this beautiful woman whom he had never seen before seemed like an image that would never leave his thoughts.

As she dropped the hood of her cape, the girl had slick, shiny black hair, complemented by olive skin and mahogany painted lips. Everything about her screamed “new in town” and “wealthy,” and while Jughead tended to despise people with money because pretty much the majority of the wealthy would throw their money at useless items, he just couldn’t shake this foreign feeling churning inside his stomach. She was partly hidden by a tall, skinny woman wearing a red tank top and shorts, seemingly seventeen or eighteen, but soon the woman walked towards Jughead’s side of Pop’s and allowed him to watch the new mystery in awe.

“I’m here for Lodge,” she spoke to Pop Tate, who bustled behind the counter with the previous orders. He stopped to pay attention to her, much like Jughead in his booth by the window. The girl’s voice was melodic, almost calming in an odd way. It definitely suit her, and Jughead wondered about how many days he would dream of her. How many days he would imagine her low, sultry voice whispering in his ear. He had never felt this way for anybody: normally, Jughead kept to himself and took pride in not being like other guys who chased after girls simply because they were attractive. But something about this girl simply set him off course, although he wasn’t too upset about it. Writers had to have their fair share of experiences to write to their best ability, right?

Pop’s seemed taken aback after she had told him her name. Jughead himself had heard it from his dad’s mouth, something about a pretentious asshole in high school taking a beautiful woman and turning her into some repressed housewife, so he figured this was their daughter. Pop came to that conclusion, too, giving her one of his infamous soft smiles. “Hiram and Hermione’s daughter, right?”

The girl paused for a few moments, almost taken aback before she figured he knew her parents, and then she let out a gentle laugh, “yeah, i’m Veronica.”

“Tell your mother that Pop Tate says hi,” Pop winked playfully. “I’ll have your order out soon.”

“Thank you!” the girl, Veronica, swiftly turned around, pursing her lips as she pondered where to sit while she waited for her order. Dark brown stormy eyes met with his seafoam green, the last thing he ever expected from someone as beautiful and elite as someone like her. Jughead was basically the polar opposite of her, and he figured she would have ignored his very existence like she had some radar for the poor, and would whisk past him into a small table to be by herself to wait. But she looked at him with a contradicting icy yet soft gaze; Jughead told himself to act cool and pretend it was all an accident that their eyes had met, but his actions deceived him and he let out the loudest, shocked gasp. With panicked, widened eyes, he swivelled back towards his laptop in hopes she hadn’t noticed and would simply pass him by like he originally thought.

But, of course, she did notice, and she was heading towards his booth. With a cute, knowing chuckle, the raven haired girl slid into the other side of his table and waited with raised, patient eyebrows until he lifted his head to meet her chocolatey stare. Gulping nervously, he pushed his large plate of fries towards her, sending his best, inviting smirk at her. “Veronica Lodge, huh? I’m Jughead.”

“Jughead?” she tilted her head, the odd name rolling off of her tongue like cream. She had never heard it before, but she liked it much better than the normal, mundane names she had come across over and over again back in New York. Clearly, there was no creativity when it came to names for the upper class. Jughead may look like he lived a life opposite of her, but at least he had an interesting name. Interesting names got people places, which is why despite not knowing the cute, intriguing boy before her, she knew he was going to go far in life. She liked that, he had something other people didn’t and much like her mother, she pushed others in the directions of their dreams. Whoever he was, she wondered—and hoped—that they would become friends.

“Well, it’s actually Forsythe Pendleton Jones the Third, but I go by Jughead,” he popped a french fry into his mouth, slowly regaining his usual amount of charm that she had ripped from him the second she stepped foot into the diner. Now that he had spoken to her, he seemed more at ease with her presence, and he liked the aura that surrounded her: something mysterious, yet playful and enticing. He wanted to drink it in, to drown in her fruity perfume and questionable reason for being in this small town.

He wondered where exactly she was from, and why would she come to Riverdale of all places. Why would anyone willingly move to such a bland place such as Riverdale? She wasn’t from anywhere outside of the United States, he could guess that from her accent, so he figured that she was a part of New York’s finest elite because where else would she get to flaunt her riches? Still, he could never be completely sure, and Jughead hated not knowing. He wanted to get to the bottom of it, the bottom of her. So, small talk to gather information for his new book idea was his way to go: whatever she said, she could give him extra without realizing it and that was what he banked on. “Forsythe reminds me of my father, and I would much rather not be associated with him in any way.”

Veronica gazed down at the french fries Jughead had offered to her. She felt it would have been rude to take one—but at the same time it would be rude not to indulge him just a little bit. Snatching the end of one of his lukewarm fries, she placed it delicately into her mouth and chewed, licking her lips of the salt and flavor. “Mmhm, wow, these fries are incredibly delicious. Not perfectly hot for my taste, but my mother ordered some with our burgers so I’ll be able to enjoy the full extent later.”

“Right? I feel kind of bad for all of the other restaurants here in Riverdale,” Jughead laughed, “nothing beats Pop’s. There’s a Dairy Queen a couple minutes away from here but the milkshakes here will always be superior.”

“Ah, makes sense. Dairy Queen is good for a quick on-the-go dessert, but not really for long, deep conversations like this cute little place. My mother sent me here because, and I quote, ‘you have never tasted anything more delectable than Pop’s burgers, fries, and the slew of shakes’, so maybe i’ll come back sometime and see if you’re still here… just don’t tell my mom i’m taking a couple of her fries,” Veronica placed her finger up to her lips, as if it were a real secret shared between the two. After a few chuckles escape their mouths, a comfortable silence fell over them for a minute or so, but Veronica couldn’t resist talking about Jughead’s relationship with his father. She couldn’t resist because she was in the same boat. What her father did to his clients was awful, and maybe finding someone who felt the same way, even if for another reason, she could find some comfort and familiarity. “You don’t like your father either, huh? Is he worse than a New York businessman who stole money from his clients?”

“Well, if you count a mean drunk who leads a gang, then I guess he’s a runner-up,” Jughead rolled his eyes at the bad memories that invaded his brain. He took a long sip of his melted chocolate milkshake in hopes that he could incite a brain freeze and take his mind off the time when he didn’t live at the Twilight Drive-In. “I wonder if we have anything else in common. Clearly, we have great taste in food, and awful fathers…”

“Miss Lodge?” Pop interrupted, smiling delicately as he held a white Pop’s to-go bag out to Veronica. “Your order is ready. I also added in a couple of our fresh-made cookies, on the house.”

Veronica cooed, “aw, that’s so sweet, thank you!”

As Pop’s disappeared behind the counter, the New York elite swirled back around to face Jughead, who attempted to stay sane as her sweet perfume wafted into his nose. It made him want to place sultry kisses on her neck, and he momentarily forgot what he was doing. He shook the thoughts away, though, because that wasn’t who he was. He wasn’t driven on primal urges. He had never really been with anyone before but he knew he didn’t want to create that reputation for himself. He was better than that. He was here to get to know her, and hopefully get enough to write a book on her. Who wouldn’t want to read a book about the upper class? Hearing how they lived was always incredibly interesting.

“Before I forget, are you a student at Riverdale High?” Veronica tilted her head, hopeful eyes beaming at him. “It would be nice to know somebody…”

Jughead laughed, “yeah, I go to Riverdale High. If you want, I could show you around.”

“Some girl named Betty Cooper is supposed to give me a tour, actually,” Veronica lifted up a corner of her lips in a sympathetic smile.

“Oh, you’ll love her. Betty’s really sweet,” Jughead murmured, “you know the cliché, stereotypical girl next door? I heard if you look it up in the dictionary, there lies Betty Cooper’s name. I can say that without it being mean because we kind of grew up together, by the way. I wouldn’t call us friends, really, because I was mostly just a friend of a friend, but, still.”

“Well, i’ve learned that many girls who seem like the sweet, innocent pretty girls tend to be the mean bitches, but then again, that was New York. I’m sure she’s a lovely girl, and I hope she will become my friend because I need a lot more kind, loyal people in my life,” Veronica sighed, “being the new girl sucks.”

“Well, hey, you’ll always have me.”

She smiled brightly, “I hope so, Forsythe Pendleton Jones the Third. I’ll hold you to that.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Jughead pretended to tip a hat while he watched Veronica slide out of the booth. Smoothing down her outfit, she cast a small giggle towards Jughead. “I’ll see you at school, Miss Lodge?”

“Of course, you’re the only person I know, Jones… let’s just hope you can keep up with me.” Her challenging smirk only made him want to get to know her even more, even outside of his evolving book. He loved a challenge, and Veronica Lodge was the perfect puzzle to solve. He just hoped that while doing so, he didn’t make himself easier to read. But who was he kidding? Finding some beautiful, enrapturing woman who led a life much different from him being so oddly similar to him, how could he stay on guard when he figured she was just as inquisitive as he was? If she was anything like him, she’d be trying her damndest to figure him just as much as he was to her.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey, dad, first day of school and i’m already late!” Archie bounded down the stairwell of his previously silent household. He didn’t call it out as a way of blaming his father, not at all, just to let him know that he had to rush out of the house and he wouldn’t be able to have breakfast with him like he did almost every other day. Seeing his golden retriever stretch and slug his way out of his bed, Archie took a quick chance to bend down a little bit and ruffle his hands over the dog’s soft fur. “Hey, Vegas.”

Passing by his father’s open office doors, he knew he was already awake enjoying the silence. His blue backpack slumped on a dining room chair, and he sifted through it to make sure he had everything that he needed. Fred snagged an ochre orange mug filled with his favorite coffee, bumped the office doors open just enough for him to walk through, and faced his son. “Hey, are you, uh, stopping by the site later?”

“Dad, it’s my first day,” Archie murmured as he stuffed his empty notebooks into the large pocket. He was glad he had to pack up the rest of his supplies because he didn’t want to face his father head on about how he didn’t want to work in construction, he wanted to make music, instead.

“Oh, we gotta get you going in the office so next summer you’re not on the crew,” Fred reminded him, already having his son’s high school years planned out when it came to work.

But Archie desperately wanted to tell him that he didn’t want that for himself. He wanted football, he wanted music, he wanted to be his own person and not what his father wanted him to be. And he didn’t have the guts to tell him that yet. “I can’t, i’ve got football tryouts… or is that not okay?” Fred had always been welcoming and kind and supportive, but he was adamant that Archie be in his construction business and he didn’t want to let him down or hurt his feelings. His father did so much for him and the last thing he wanted was to disappoint Fred. He didn’t want to lose his father, he was all Archie had ever since his parent’s divorce.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Fred shook his head, watching his son with a hidden layer of proud written in the crinkles around his eyes. “Good luck.”

With shared, soft smiles, the father and son duo split apart, both feeling a sense of lightweight happiness coursing through their veins. Archie was relieved his father was okay with him not continuing with Andrews Construction, even if he was partly lying. Fred was slightly disappointed his son would probably be placed on the crew next summer, but all in all he was proud Archie spoke up and voiced his opinion. He raised his son well. Wasn’t that any parent’s wish? For their child to be able to go after the things they wanted and feel loved and appreciated and safe to talk to their parents? All that mattered was that he was happy and he could spend his high school years actually being a teenager.

* * *

Betty Cooper, like always, was up and ready way before she probably needed to. Her mother tended to be extremely uptight, and wanted to make sure her daughter got a big start on the first day of school. Which also meant that while Betty packed her backpack, she felt she had to remind the younger version of her that school was important and that she had to work harder than most people to get a good education. “Betty, this coming year is critical for colleges. Grades are important—extracurriculars, athletics… maintaining a decent character is hugely important; it may not seem like it, but they do look at that.”

“Mom, i’m a sophomore,” Betty scoffed lightly, sending her mother, Alice, a wild look knowing that nothing she did didn’t really matter until senior year, maybe junior depending on the college she wanted.

“You’ve accomplished so much. I just don’t want anything jeopardizing that,” Alice desperately didn’t want her youngest daughter to go through anything that she did in high school. She was a South Side Serpent, a gang on the south side of Riverdale, and she could have cared less about going to class, learning, or acquiring good grades. She managed to turn her life around before it was too late but now she was miserable. She was miserable because at the time, she was fathering the baby of a man she loved, although being with him wasn’t healthy for her. She had to make a decision and turning her life around was much more important than her own happiness. She didn’t necessarily want Betty to throw herself in a loveless marriage like she did, Alice simply wanted her to already have the good life that she struggled so hard to get. “I mean, just think of your poor sister. She was such a shining star before she let that Blossom boy ruin her.”

The last thing Betty wanted to talk about was her older sister Polly, who was God knows where. All she ever heard about was how amazing she was before Jason Blossom, and she was so over being compared to her. She hoped this was the last time she’d have to remind her mother, but Betty doubted that. “Mom, i’m not Polly.”

“You missed curfew last night,” Alice gazed at her daughter pointedly, as if one night being home late was a warning sign that she was going off the deep end. It was crazy and unneeded, but if you knew the deepest, darkest corners of Alice Cooper’s past, all would make sense and you would understand why she was so uptight.

Betty laughed in disbelief, “by seven minutes. I was next door, mom, and I fell asleep watching a movie with Archie. Who, yes, has red hair, but he is nothing like Jason Blossom.”

Alice wrapped her hand around Betty’s right wrist to cease her actions, standing up so her daughter knew she was serious. Too many times when she was a party girl in high school had she been used and hurt by boys who paraded around with the facade of being a sweet boy, but ended up drugging her drink and shaming her into silence. Shaming her into that disgusting, self hatred-filled void just so she wouldn’t tell—wouldn’t _want_ to tell anyone. Besides, who would listen to the Serpent party girl’s cries? Alice wanted nothing more than to tell her daughter just how capable even the sweetest boys were, but that meant reliving her worst memories and she didn’t want to go through that just yet, not after Polly. “Oh, but, sweetie… all boys are like Jason Blossom. They make you believe they’re sweet but then they end up either ripping your heart out or taking advantage of you.”

The young girl sighed, not knowing of the multitude of high school horror stories her mother bared the trauma of. She simply thought her mother didn’t want Polly with a Blossom, but parents always kept secrets from their children, the horrors of the world, so it wasn’t Betty’s fault that she had no clue to the full extent of her mother’s protective demeanor. “Mom—”

“I love you so much, Elizabeth… I just need you to be smart, okay? And stay focused,” Alice placed a bottle of pills in Betty’s palm, pursing her lips in a loving matter. “I refilled your adderall. It seems you forgot to pick up your prescription.”

Betty huffed, following her mother’s figure turn to leave her bedroom. She knew she simply cared, but she wished her mother wasn’t so uptight all the time. The love and appreciation between a mother and daughter was simply yet another facade in the Cooper household. Sadly, there wasn’t a true, molded bond that normally naturally grew as the children did. It was all just… conditional and fake. And her adderall pills were just a reminder that she wasn’t perfect like she desperately wished she was, like how she viewed Toni Morrison, like how her mother wanted her to be, like how she figured Archie saw her because she wasn’t a little girl anymore and she didn’t want Archie to know just how un-perfect she actually was.

Even though she needed the pills, sometimes she wanted to dump them in the toilet and flush them down like a dead fish just so she wouldn’t have to take them twice a day. But she never did, because the person she cared about most, that cute redhead who lived next door, would never want her to get rid of something that helped her mentality.

Staring at herself in the mirror, Betty shrugged on her backpack and smiled gently at her reflection in hopes it would lift her mood. “Let’s go show Riverdale High who’s boss!”

* * *

Archie Andrews fingered the page of lyrics he had written about Gracie, thoughtfully thinking back to when he wrote them.

 **She came right to me  
  
** **She was beckoning  
**  
 **Took me by surprise**

They had met on a sweltering summer day. He was all hot and sweaty because he had just finished working at the construction site, walking home with the sun beating on his bare back, and there Gracie rolls up in her blue Volkswagen bug, sipping on Coca-Cola in a glass bottle through a pink straw, and red glasses shielding her sultry eyes. Leaning her shades down over her slender nose, he jogged up to her window and she asked him if he wanted a ride. Her voice, to him, was excitement, caring, sexy... she was absolutely breathtaking and it had only taken one glance before he was trapped under her spell. He was surely surprised that some gorgeous woman was actually talking to him, pursuing him without a dare being needed. He thinks about that day all the time, and that was evident with the multiple lyrics written about her.

“Bro, you are ready for football,” Reggie Mantle, Archie’s best friend, brought Archie out of his memories as his shoulder clashed with the blue locker beside his. Archie laughed off the boy’s comment, going back to organizing the supplies he did and didn’t need for first period. “I’m not kidding you, dude. You got ripped.”

“Thanks, Reg,” Archie murmured. His relationship with the fellow football player was odd. He called him his best friend, but it seemed mostly situational. At school and during football, they were best friends, but anywhere else they were simply just friends, acquaintances. He wasn’t sure what to call it, or how that made any lick of sense, but overall he knew that if Reggie needed him for anything, he’d be there. They were at least close enough for that.

“Dude, you’re a beast. Look at this arm, it’s diesel!” Reggie exclaimed, “how much are you benching, like 220? 225? You got to give me some tips, man. Romanian deadlifts, right? Taking some T? Ginseng? Maca root? Tribulus terrestris?”

Archie wasn’t entirely sure what Reggie was talking about anymore, but now that he was done gathering his notebooks, Archie hugged them to his chest and closed his locker, beginning to walk away towards his first class. He knew the twenty-questions-filled boy would follow him, anyways. Reggie always did. “It’s from working construction, Reg.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s right,” Reggie muttered, as if he had forgotten what his best friend had talked to him about briefly during the summer. It was probably when Reggie was drunk from some party Archie didn’t go to. “Yo, Moose!” Tapping on the other football player like a game of flag football, Moose dropped what he was doing and immediately began following suit. “Look who grew up over the summer.”

“Hey!” Moose quickly turned to the girl he was talking to, mouthing ‘call me’ as he wiggled his pinky and thumb in a phone sign. Then he brought his attention to Reggie and Archie again, all in one swift move.

“Yo, be honest with me. You work on any houses? Any private homes?” Reggie asked, his wet dream of being the sexy pool boy for some rich, bored house-wife playing over in his head as he imagined his friend getting some from the hot mom.

“Yeah, a couple,” the redhead shrugged, hiding the fact that he had actually met a girl over the summer. If he told them that, they would never let it go until he gave them every detail. And then they would call him whipped, which he didn’t think he was. Totally not… right?

“Did you tap some cougar ass this summer?”

Archie spun around to face the two football players trailing behind him, walking backwards coolly with a playful smirk on his lips. “You know what, I think that’s more of a fantasy from your wank bank, Reggie. I’ll catch you guys soon, gotta get to class.”

“Peace out, brother!” he pointed as a goodbye to Archie, then snickered as he hit Moose’s forearm. “He totally did it, bro. Did you see the way he brought it onto me? He definitely got some cougar ass… what a lucky little shit.”

* * *

The bell rang, and most students piled into their homerooms to hear the morning announcements before the buzzing assembly happened. Betty meekly waved at their teacher as one last “hey, we’re leaving for the tour!” and guided Veronica out into the hallway.

“So, I usually start off my tours with a little history and context,” Betty clapped her hands together and gazed around the hall as she knew Veronica was doing, too. “Riverdale High first opened its doors in 1941 and—”

“And hasn’t been redecorated since, apparently,” Veronica interrupted, lips curling in disgust at the peeling white and baby blue walls of the school, boards that clubs could pin their promotion papers onto messy and in disarray from last year, and dust collecting in the corners of the hallways. Back at her old private school someone would lose their job for those mishaps. “Honestly, I feel like i’m wandering through the lost epilogue of _Our Town_.”

Betty had no fucking clue what this rich bitch was talking about, so she put on a smile and laughed in hopes she would talk about literally anything else, even disrespecting their school would be better because maybe then she could join in and be in the loop.

“So, what’s the social scene like here? Any night clubs?” Veronica changed the topic, which should have made Betty let out a sigh of relief, but then again one of the few topics she didn’t have any idea about was something the socialite just had to bring up. They couldn’t have been more opposite, they had absolutely nothing in common. You would think that because they were both female and read books they would be able to find something but from the looks of it… the only thing that really brought them together was Veronica’s need for friends and Betty’s desire to find outlets to make her feel like a typical teenager who sometimes didn’t follow the rules and wasn’t the perfect little princess for mommy.

Thankfully, Kevin came out of nowhere, spinning in to walk backwards so he could talk to both of them at the same time, saving the blonde from having to figure out what kind of clubs the New York party girl would be interested in. “There’s a strip club called the Ho Zone and a tragic gay bar called Innuendo.”

“Innuendo? They had the chance to name it something clever and they seriously went with that?” Veronica voiced, holding back a snicker. “I would have named it something much better.”

“Friday nights, football games, and then tailgate parties at the Mallmart parking lot. Saturday night is movie night, regardless of what’s playing at the Bijou, and you better get there early because we don’t have reserved seating in Riverdale,” making his way over to Betty, he wrapped his arms around her as if he was inviting Veronica into their friend-group personally, “and Sunday nights… thank God for HBO.”

“Veronica Lodge, Kevin Keller,” Betty introduced, having a major feeling that the two would get along perfectly. “Veronica’s new here. Kevin is—”

“Gay, thank God. Let’s be best friends,” Veronica beamed excitedly, holding out her hand for him to shake. Coming from Spence, an all girl’s private school, she was excited to find someone else who stood under the rainbow umbrella with her. To whoever didn’t know her, they would assume she was a straight girl wanting a gay best friend, but in reality she was a chaotic bisexual desperate for an unabashed, open friendship with someone who understood the tribulations of being LGBT.

Kevin mirrored her gesture, leaning in as he took an opportunity to ask what had been floating through his mind ever since he heard Veronica was joining their school. “Is it true what they say about your dad?” Betty looked up, her face falling as the best friends mentally conversed with one another. It was clear that Betty was telling him that what he asked was wrong, and that he shouldn’t have brought it up. Kevin opened his mouth to speak, but then, at the same time, they suddenly remembered that Veronica was there, watching them with a tightened jaw and icy cold glare.

“What, that he’s the devil incarnate? I wouldn’t go that far, but he did do something awful,” Veronica pointed, huffing out her displeasure of the idea that she could truly start over and no one would know what her father had done unless she herself told them crumbling within seconds. Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked to the two before her, who seemed scared that the rumored rich bitch would show her wrath to them. “Does everyone here know?” Neither answered. Neither wanted to answer, but Betty squinted her eyes and sucked in her lips in an awful attempt to keep herself from saying anything, which initially gave it all away. “Wonderful! Ten minutes in and i’m already the _Blue Jasmine_ of Riverdale High.”

Disappointed that she wouldn’t get her fair, full chance at running from her past, Veronica stalked away, leaving Betty to send Kevin a pointed look before she ran off after Veronica.

“What?” Kevin questioned lowly, holding out his hand. He didn’t understand how exactly he was in the wrong when all he did was ask what everybody else was dying to.

* * *

Archie furrowed his eyebrows, standing upright and bringing his hand back to his sides so the water fountain stopped. Echoing from the theater where plays and musicals would be performed was the beautiful voice of who could only have been Riverdale’s resident band, the Pussycats with their iconic leopard print cat ears. Following after the sound of Josie McCoy’s heavenly siren call, he opened the door to the back stage and made sure to close it as gently as possible as not to interrupt, and crossed over towards the ocean blue curtains where he spotted Josie, Melody, and Valerie sitting on stools in a circle, with a guitar placed on the middle Pussycat, Josie. The three began to harmonize, and they were into the music, into the song, and that’s exactly how Archie wanted to feel. If anyone was to help him, it would be them. Although, the last thing he wanted was to interrupt.

Of course, though, Josie cracked open her eyes and stopped him, snapping her fingers to cease her best friends in their tracks, eyes sharp and dismissive as she looked over the redhead. “Excuse me, this is a closed rehearsal.”

“I’m sorry. I…” It was now or never. “Josie, right? I was hoping I could talk to you about some songs that I wrote?”

“Let me just… stop you… right there,” the girl gently placed the guitar behind her friend on the right, Valerie if Archie remembered her name correctly, and onto its stand, suppressing a laugh as she stood up to face him. However, it was soon replaced with a gulp when he noticed her pointed look; he knew he was about to get eaten alive. “You’re staring at our pussycat ears, which is rude, but let me break it, and them, down for you.”

Archie nodded awkwardly, biting down on his lower lip as he faithfully listened to every word Josie said to him.

“The Pussycats are building a brand, creating a signature look, okay?” She held up her fingers beside her ears, as if she needed another set to make him understand, then snapped twice to make a point. “We’re telling a story. Last year, we won Rockland County’s Battle of the Bands—”

“That we did!” Melody hollered excitedly, most likely to stroke their ego.

Josie simply continued, pointing in the girl’s direction to bring some attention to her outburst. “This year, we’d like to build on that success, continue telling our story with songs we write.”

“I get that. It’s just—”

Josie had fought with men like Archie. He felt that she owed it to him to help, but she was a woman of color who had to fight longer and harder to get where she was now. She wasn’t going to let him think he could own her, even if she was interested in what he had written. “Read my glossed lips, Justin Gingerlake. Not… gonna… happen.” Waving goodbye to him, she made sure that he knew she was done talking and was definitely not going to let him continue. He nodded gingerly, not willing to put up a fight. He understood, he just wanted someone to talk to about his music who was almost like an expert, someone that wasn’t Gracie. She didn’t even go to this school, but Archie contemplated that he didn’t have that many options left.

* * *

Betty and Veronica, after calming the elite with a small pep talk about how gossip came and go within minutes, they were back to their tour. “Oh, and of course there’s the Back-To-School semi-formal dance this weekend.”

Veronica, however, had became easily as distracted as before, setting her sights on someone else. Actually, a treat for her eyes, two different people who could have been siblings. “Who is that?”

“Archie? That’s my best friend,” Betty smiled fondly, gently rubbing her neck as she watched him walk down the hallway opposite of them.

“Sadly, he’s straight, but just to clarify, Betty and Archie aren’t dating but they are endgame,” Kevin explained, leaving Betty to, once again, try to scream at him using her mind. She didn’t want someone she barely knew to know one of her secrets. Coming from New York, coming from the bored affluent life where girls gossiped about whatever they could zone in on, what if she decided to tell the whole school, tell Archie? Betty didn’t want that, but now it was too late.

With her thin lips and wide eyes, Veronica barely even noticed as her gaze wandered onto the female fixing up her makeup in a small compact mirror at the end of the hallway. She was dressed ready for a funeral, as if she were a widow who lost her husband—with the lace head cover and everything. “I was mostly asking about her, but that’ll be a talk for another time. If you like him, Betty, why don’t you ask him to the semi-formal, then?”

“She should, and I would be urging her to do so but I heard it might be getting cancelled,” Kevin sighed, sorrowfully looking down at Veronica who furrowed her eyebrows in question. “That girl you were ogling at, the queen bitch of school, Cheryl Blossom? She lost her brother Jason on the Fourth of July. They’re going to tell us at the assembly.”

* * *

Veronica felt awful for the Blossom girl. She didn’t know her or her brother Jason, but hearing her suppress sobs through the silence she had requested from the assembly almost broke her. She remembers when she lost her favorite cousin, Ruby, in a drive-by, and how the only thing that could keep her mind off of it was drugs, alcohol, and her at-the-time girlfriend, Izzie Clayton. Betty and Kevin made it clear that they viewed the redheaded girl as a bitch, which if she had any experience if not more, she had nobody to turn to. Who other than someone who went through the same thing could see through a feign facade meant to distract others from knowing just how broken you are?

“Thank you for that moment of silence,” Cheryl heaved out a small sigh, as if to help her gather her composure before she spoke again. “Many of you were lucky enough to have known my brother personally. Each and every one of you meant the world to Jason. I loved my brother—he was, and always will be, my soulmate. I speak with the confidence only a twin could have; Jason wouldn’t want us to spend the year mourning. Jason would want us to move on with our lives, which is why I have asked the school board not to cancel the Back-To-School semi-formal!” Veronica jumped as the kids seated around her cheered. “But, rather, to let us use it as a way to heal, collectively, and celebrate my brother’s short life on this mortal coil. Thank you all.”

Veronica didn’t know Cheryl, and she definitely didn’t know Jason, but what she did know is that when she lost Ruby, all she wanted was someone to just sit with her so she wouldn’t be alone. Everybody, knowing how close they were, would wrap the young Lodge in a hug, say a couple of empty sentences about how they were there for her if she needed anything, and then they’d leave awkwardly after she asked them to leave. The only person who understood Veronica was Izzie, and she simply sat beside her and rubbed her shoulders, resting her head on the blade of her back, and would just sit there in silence with her, letting her know that she wasn’t alone and she never would be. Veronica may only be a stranger to her, but she felt oddly obligated to be Cheryl’s Izzie.

After the assembly, Veronica weaved in and out of the crowd, desperately trying to find the redhead, but the heaps of students who seemed headstrong about keeping her from who she wanted to talk to, instead made her run into a lanky boy with a beanie. “Oh, i’m so sorry… wait… Jughead?”

“Shit…” Jughead whispered under his breath, and she wasn’t sure if he knew she could hear him. Stuffing his laptop into his book bag and sliding the headphones off from over his ears, he chuckled nervously. “Hey, Veronica. Are you looking for Betty? She’ll probably be anywhere Archie is.”

“I was actually looking for Cheryl. She may not know me, but I know what it’s like to lose someone and it sucks,” Veronica chewed on her lower lip. “I’d love to chat with you, but I really want to introduce myself before Betty finds me and tries to continue her boring tour about how in 1941 someone chose these awful colors to represent the school and painted each stroke while at the same time wondering how much paint it would take before they got a high and found a way to break their arm.”

“That was… oddly specific. Jason’s death does suck, I guess, but Cheryl is the meanest person in this school. You just may have enough money for her to consider you her new, instant best friend, but i’d stay away and let her grieve alone,” Jughead shrugged, emitting an uncomfortable laugh when he realized that Veronica was dead set on being the Blossom’s emotional support rich princess. “Sorry, I can’t help you, Veronica. Oh, and, uh, finding Cheryl before Betty found you is a lost cause, because Betty is on her way right now. Which is my cue to leave.”

“What the fuck?” Veronica blinked, the boy suddenly engulfed somewhere in the crowd. She whispered incredulously and mockingly under her breath, “thanks, _Jughead Jones the Third_.”

“Veronica, there you are! I thought I lost you,” Betty snickered, wrapping her arms through Kevin and Veronica’s. “C’mon, I’ll help you to your class and we’ll continue the tour later. Where’s your schedule?”

* * *

“Hermione Lodge,” Fred Andrews announced in surprise, grabbing the bill of his construction hat and laying it down on the counter behind him. He chuckled incredulously, grabbing a couple of navy folders before sitting down opposite her. “Well, my day just got a lot more interesting.”

“Hello, Fred. How are you?” The two parents gazed at one another, trying to hold back the feelings they once shared for one another. For a short period of time Hermione and Fred had this fling and there was no denying it happened, even if they ended up with other people. What they had was different than what they settled for. Now, did Fred love Mary? Of course, but whatever it was that he had with Hermione made him feel something else. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it considering it had been a long time, but it was all in the past now.

“Surprised.” Fred still couldn’t believe that she was back. When her and Hiram left Riverdale for New York, everyone figured that they wouldn’t come back. Who would? An already-rich Hiram left for business school, and over the years became one of the top businessmen in New York. Obviously, everybody who knew Hiram figured he had cut corners and stepped on others to get to where he was now, and considering he was in jail, their suspicions were confirmed. But, why wouldn’t Hermione want to live a wealthy life? She used to be the good Catholic school girl, trying to get by and with the promise of money that would only accumulate as time passed. Fred cleared his throat, realizing he wasn’t being the gentleman he usually was because he was too busy stuck in his own head, dwelling over the past and what could have been. “Can I get you anything? Would you like a water?”

Hermione didn’t care for simplicities, though. Now that Hiram was in jail, and all she had to her name was the Pembrooke, she needed a job desperately. “A job.” Fred opened his mouth to speak, the disappointment of knowing he’d have to turn her down based on what was going on in her life evident in his features. “I saw on your website that you are looking for a seasonal hire, someone to help with the books?”

“Yeah, my guy’s on paternity leave,” Fred leaned back in his chair, nodding in agreement with her. He did put out that ad, but her husband was in jail for embezzlement and here she was, trying to get close to Andrews Construction’s books. Even if he did know her, it still felt… off.

Hermione knew exactly what he was thinking, because everyone in New York felt the exact same way. It’s why she had to leave New York: she couldn’t get anyone to hire her because of Hiram, and now she hoped she could find a way in. “You know, I think my daughter’s going to school with your son. Isn’t that funny? We’ll have to tell them that we knew each other… that we even dated for a little while. Well, at least until I—”

“Chose the rich kid,” Fred finished for her, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice. What they had was passionate and sexy yet loving and tender, and she threw it all away for riches.

“And now, a reversal of fortune.” Hermione chuckled at the irony. She chose Hiram over Fred, head over heart, so she would never have to worry about the stresses of money like her family used to, and here she was begging her old flame for a job in hopes that unlike her, he would use his heart over his head. “How’s Mary doing?”

Fred knew what Hermione was doing. He was in high school with Hiram, knew how his businessman mind worked. He knew he had taught them to Hermione as well, because she was doing all that she could to manipulate him into giving her a job. Still, despite knowing that, he humored her. Sitting up in his chair, he answered, “she’s in Chicago. We split up, but we’re civil about it. How about you?” He could take the chance to be petty, to show her that he wished she never left him in the dust back in high school, and while he never really liked Hiram all that much, he felt bad for Hermione. Anyone going through a spouse being in prison must have been going through a lot, and the Lodge’s never wanted people to know how they were truly feeling. “How are you holding up, really?”

Hermione laughed gently, recognizing the same old sweet Fred Andrews. Anyone else would have talked down to her in her moments of weakness, but not Fred. He would never use or hurt somebody while they were already down—hell, he’d never hurt anyone unless he had no other option. He was just good, and that was partly why she couldn’t be with him. She felt like she would have ended up hurting him in the long run. But she had changed, and all that mattered to her right now was acquiring a job so she could keep her and her daughter afloat. “I have a little money saved. I was praying that someone in Riverdale, maybe an old friend, would be willing to give me the benefit of the doubt."

Fred stood up from his seat. “ _If_ it were up to me—”

“Isn’t it up to you? It’s your company.”

With a sigh, he leaned up against the desk that previously separated them, looking down at her wishing he could help, but he didn’t want to run his company into the ground by trusting a Lodge. His clients would lose trust in him. “I have clients. I can’t very well have Hermione Lodge, wife of Hiram Lodge who’s on trial for fraud and embezzlement, balancing my books, can I?”

As much as she hated it, she understood. With a small exhale, she shook her head, trying to hide her disappointment. “No… I suppose you can’t.”

* * *

Veronica Lodge wasn’t sure where to sit for lunch. Everybody was already with their friends, and randomly letting the new girl sit with them would have been absolutely weird and awkward, and she couldn’t find Jughead anywhere much like last time when he disappeared on her—she figured he would sit alone like he did at Pop’s the night she met him. He did seem rather shy and reserved, so sitting outside where a lot of students ate wouldn’t be his forte. And while she still wanted to talk to Cheryl, she had an inkling that the cold front would be hard as a rock in front of her friends. She only knew this because, again, she used to be just like Cheryl; she had her own group of friends who followed her and looked up to her. Letting them see the real her was never an option, so instead she opted for Betty, Archie, and Kevin, even though Betty didn’t seem all that into her. Hopefully she could change that, because, currently, they were all she had.

“Lucky to even hear…” the voice on the laptop sang. Veronica paid it no mind, the group could easily pause their music and listen to it later. Archie closed the laptop as she approached the table.

“Can I join?” Veronica questioned hopefully.

Betty gestured to the empty seat in front of her, beside Kevin. “Yeah.”

“What are we doing?”

“Listening to one of Archie’s songs,” Betty cooed, her hand not-so-subtly placed on his arm. Even if Kevin hadn’t of told Veronica that Betty liked Archie, it would have been so totally obvious. She would have wondered how Archie didn’t know, but then again he was a teenage boy and sometimes they tended to be absolutely oblivious.

“I thought we were going to have to pretend to like it, but it’s actually really good,” Kevin voiced, impressed.

“Wait… that was you singing?” Veronica shifted towards the redhead, awestruck. The song playing from the laptop sounded like a good indie-pop singer with a guitar, but finding out that it was Archie? His voice was soothing, in a way. “Something you wrote?”

Archie wasn’t used to this kind of praise. He was already scared of their reactions, and somewhere in the back of his head a tiny voice told him that they were simply just egging him on, feigning their likeness of his new, partly self-taught hobby. “It’s rough…”

“No, it’s great!” Betty reassured.

“It’s incredible, actually, the little snippet I heard,” Veronica added, “is that your thing? Music? Are you doing something with that?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan,” Archie nodded, looking over at Betty for a moment wondering what she was thinking. She was the only one who knew that his plan was different from his father’s, and that he hopes it’s the way he’ll go, but isn’t sure. He wanted to change the subject, and now that Veronica was here, he had the perfect escape. “So, how’s your first day going? Good, I hope.”

“Not to be a complete narcissist, but I thought people would be more…”

“Obsessed with you?” Kevin finished for her, eyebrows raised because he knew he was right. “Any other year, you’d be trending number one, for sure. This year, though, it’s all about Cheryl trying to win the Best Supporting Psycho Oscar for her role as Riverdale High’s bereaved Red Widow.”

Archie noticed that Cheryl was coming up towards their table. And while he was friends with Jason when he was alive and felt bad for her loss, the last thing he wanted was to talk about it. He wasn’t ready yet. Besides, since his plan with Josie failed, he had no other option than to try and go to the new music teacher, Ms. Grundy. Currently, he was thankful that he had a genuine excuse. “Hey, I should go. I have to go see Ms. Grundy about lessons, and then… uh… football tryouts, so…”

Veronica looked up, “you play football, too? What don’t you do?” It was a time like this that she wished she didn’t know that Betty pretty much had a permanent dibs called on him; a man who played sports and could sing songs to her that he wrote were always something to be desired. But she would never take anybody else’s man… that was something old Veronica would do, and this was the new. Besides, the more she thought deeply about it, the more he wasn’t her type. She wanted a challenge, someone to match her intellectually and keep her on her toes for a change. She wasn’t sure who that was yet, but hopefully she would figure it out.

The three watched Archie leave without another word. Kevin leaned in to speak, “before you ask, Blue Jasmine, no, she has not invited him to the dance yet.”

Betty defensively argued back in a rushed manner. “Not yet, and don’t talk about Archie!”

Just in time for Cheryl Blossom to approach the table. “Veronica Lodge! I’ve heard whisperings… i’m Cheryl Blossom, may I sit?” Of course, she was Cheryl and didn’t need permission. Veronica was much like that as well, never being told what to do. She did whatever she pleased, and didn’t care who didn’t like it. “Betty, do you mind?” Forcing the blonde to slide over into the spot Archie previously occupied, the new redhead of the table smiled charmingly. “So, what are you three hens gossiping about?”

Veronica could just tell by looking at her that Cheryl was a lesbian. She may not act like it, but as a girl who basically had the same life as her, coming out as bisexual about a year or so ago made her wonder if she, too, was simply a compulsatory heterosexual. Veronica was at first, afraid what her parents might think if she brought a girlfriend home, but then she said “fuck you” to patriarchal and heteronormative society and her strict latin parents and came out. Not everyone was as brave or lucky as her to have parents who didn’t mind it, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t sense when others might be in the same, self-destructive loop. Besides, it was clear as day that Cheryl was into girls. At least… she really, desperately hoped that she was, and that her gaydar wasn’t off. But the way Cheryl gazed over Veronica’s body… there was no way she wasn’t into girls.

Veronica had totally gotten lost in her own thoughts for a couple of seconds while Cheryl was talking, totally missing whatever it was that the redhead had said. She looked to Betty, who shook her head as rapidly yet nonchalant as possible. It was just a shot in the dark. “Uh… we were talking about extracurriculars. Weatherbee wants me to sign up for a few since i’m new and all.”

“Cheerleading, you must! I’m senior captain of the River Vixens,” Cheryl beamed, bringing a part of her hair to the other side.

“Is cheerleading still a thing?” Kevin inquired.

Cheryl snapped back, “is being the gay best friend still a thing?”

As much as Veronica didn’t like how Kevin was dismissive of the sport she also excelled in at Spence, Cheryl’s comeback was much more insensitive. Although, if she _was_ compulsory heteronormatic, it would make sense for her to use that comeback as her outlet, as her way of solidifying the notion that she was the “default” straight. Veronica felt bad for the girl, remembering just how awful and self-hurting it was to pretend she was straight.

Quickly switching back to cheerleading, Cheryl continued. “Some people say it’s retro, I say it’s eternal and iconic.” Yeah, no, being that quick to go back to the topic before was a big giveaway. This poor Blossom girl had to have been gay, and repressing her feelings due to a multitude of reasons. Of course, she could never be absolutely, one hundred percent sure, but she was at about a ninety eight.

“At Spence, I sat at the top of the Elites’ pyramid. I’m in,” Veronica nodded, hoping that this was a way she could connect with Cheryl, and maybe figure out a way to add on the last two percent. Plus, she could make more friends and remake new cheerleading memories away from her awful persona back at Spence. “Betty, you’re trying out, too.”

“Of course! Anyone’s welcome to try out, but Betty’s already got so much on her plate right now…” Veronica almost sneered as her gaze fell to Betty’s tray of healthy food. She used to be like that, and it almost killed her, “and being a Vixen is kind of a full time thing. But, open to all!” Cheryl stood up from the table and smiled, “follow me on Twitter and I’ll do the same. My handle is @cherylbomshell.”

With that said, the redhead left the table, and Veronica couldn’t hold anything in for even two seconds later. She had to uplift Betty after Cheryl had basically told her that she was too fat and busy to be on the cheerleading squad. It was utter bullshit, and she wanted this to be a way to bond between them. No way was she going to let Betty be disheartened over the words spoken by a broken girl hiding behind a mask. “Okay, go ahead and hate on cheerleading, but if Hipster Prince Harry—”

“Veronica, i’d love to be a cheerleader,” Betty interrupted with an exasperated sigh. “It would look great on my college applications. But last year when I tried out, Cheryl said I was too fat.”

“Too season five Betty Draper, it was a great line!” Kevin gleamed, then looked over at Betty, deflating a little bit as he realized that what he said could have hurt her feelings. “But not at all true.”

“I may not have known you last year, but now all I see is a total smokeshow,” Veronica saw Betty’s blush, and knew that she wouldn’t believe it because that’s what had been drilled into her. “I mean it, Betty. As hot and as smart as you are, you should be the Queen Bey of this drab hive.” Her and Kevin shared a poised, raised eyebrow before she continued. “Look, if you want to be a River Vixen, i’ll help you prep. I got moves.

Betty used the back of her hand to wipe off the juice left behind from the apple she was biting into, the blonde nodded in agreement. “Okay, you know what? Show me your moves.

* * *

Archie knocked on the door to Ms. Grundy’s classroom. It was lunch, and therefore he knew that she would be alone and he could talk to her and not feel pressured at all from his fellow classmates. When he heard a muffled, “come in!” he twisted the door handle and pushed inward. Stepping into the music room, his eyebrows furrowed as he searched for the teacher.

“Sorry, i’m over here having my lunch! Would you like to—” he turned his head to greet the teacher and see why she had stopped, and felt his heart descend directly into hell to be shattered, have lava poured all over it, and pulverized into a fine dust that wafted into the wind as he figured out why. There, sitting in the chair, was Gracie Lovelace, the girl that he had met over the summer. The girl who said she was seventeen. “Archie? What are you—what are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing, Gracie,” Archie muttered in an accusatory tone. “Oh, wait, Geraldine Grundy, is it?”

“I can explain.”

“Explain?” Archie grit his teeth, repulsed as the memories he held for “Gracie” became warped with the realization that she wasn’t a teenager at all, she was an adult. “Explain what, that you’re a… you’re a fucking pedophile?”

Hastily, Ms. Grundy, as stated by the name plaque on her desk, dropped her plastic bowl of market salad to the side and ushered over to Archie, her small, pasty hand covering his lips as if that would bring the words back into his mouth, keep anybody from accidentally overhearing the word that would ruin her life. Considering it was lunch, it would be incredibly unlucky for her if somewhere were messing around in the hallways and heard, but the fear still struck through her veins.

Archie gagged, ripping her grasp from his lips and replacing it with his own, attempting to keep himself from puking. It would have been somewhat different if she didn’t know he was a teenager, but he had told her on their first date after they met. On one of his days off, Archie brought “Gracie” to this open field towards the outskirts of town where the farms began to pop up everywhere. He opened up to her, told her about his new passion for music, how he wanted to get some help from this awesome student band, Josie and the Pussycats. He told her how he didn’t have his license yet because he was only fifteen, so he had his permit—he even showed her his awful, awkward picture that they had used where they told him he could "kind of" smile, which didn’t make sense. She _knew_ he was underage, and that she was going to be a teacher here at Riverdale High. He never specified which school he was going to, but that didn’t make it right. She was still, and will always be, a teacher. Someone over eighteen. An adult. And he wanted to throw up.

“How old are you?” Archie forced himself to ask. He didn’t want to know the answer, didn’t want to know their age difference, but at the same time he did. He wanted to know the differences between their ages, maybe because in the back of his mind he could pretend this never happened if it was close. What if she was studying to be a teacher, so she was eighteen, nineteen? It was still a big gap for him being fifteen but that way it would be less creepy, slightly less disgusting, and he could simply put it into the back of his mind.

But then she answered softly, afraid, “thirty five,” and Archie could feel every twist and turn that pierced the lining of his stomach. Honestly, at this moment, he would prefer being stabbed multiple times than this. “Look, you can’t tell anyone. You hear me, Archie?”

He took a step back from her outreached hand that attempted to stroke his cheek. “Why, so you don’t lose your job and aren’t given the rightful title of ‘pedophile’ or are you just fucking dumb? I thought you were a teacher, _Ms. Grundy_. Aren’t you supposed to be smart?”

Her demeanor changed drastically; the honey brown eyes Archie loved staring into when the sun was shining now faded into a dark, terrifying black, and even with her oversized glasses and ponytail, she had never looked so threatening as she did in this moment. “You are a student, so it makes sense that you haven’t thought about what would happen if you did tell everybody about us, and what we heard at Sweetwater River.”

Archie hated himself for genuinely being interested in what she had to say. He should just leave, tell the principal about the new music teacher, but instead he leaned against one of the student desks and indirectly showed her that he wanted to stay just a little bit longer to hear what exactly would happen.

“If you tell everybody, there will be consequences for both of us, not just me, Archie,” Ms. Grundy explained, her dark eyes slowly shifting back to the sweet, gentle brown he was so used to as she relaxed a little bit. “You’ll lose everybody you love. Your family, your best friends, your classmates will avoid you—all because you were in a relationship with me.”

“I’m the minor, you’re the adult. You are the one at fault,” Archie rolled his eyes, completely appalled at her attempt to silence him. “Besides, it’s the right thing to do. Jason was murdered, and we heard him get shot!”

“They never tell you what other kids do once the bad adult goes away,” she sighed dramatically, puffing out her bottom lip as a way to make him feel like he should agree with her. “You become a ghost. Nobody wants to touch you; your classmates find you repulsive for consenting to it, your teachers stay as far away as they can in fear of you attaching to them, your friends distance themselves because they don’t want to be associated with the kid who was in a relationship with a teacher. Don’t you see, Archie? You can’t tell anyone, not unless you want to ruin your life.”

He wasn’t sure how she was able to change his mind so quickly. Even with the guilt of hearing Jason being shot, he figured that maybe it was the visions that were placed into his mind of Betty shuffling away from him with a curled lip, shaking her head as he reached out to her. Maybe it was his dad watching him from afar with disappointment riddled in his eyes, or maybe it was his own reflection, shaming him for falling for it, being so stupid as to fall for some perfect girl. Nobody was perfect, and he thought she would just roll up in her Volkswagen Bug out of nowhere? It was his fault. _It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault._ His mind echoed the short sentence around in his brain until a tear rolled down his cheek and his hardened gaze flickered up to meet Ms. Grundy’s.

“If you touch anybody else at this school with your filthy hands… I will smile and wave as they haul you off into the back of a cop car before they send me to juvie,” Archie threatened lowly, swallowing thickly as his body shivered in distaste. “No one will hear about how you violated me. Manipulated me. Lied to me. And no one will know what we heard as long as you stick to people your own age.”

He couldn’t stand the sight of her any longer. He should have waited to hear her say it, say that she promised not to take advantage of anyone else ever again, but if he looked into those big brown eyes he used to adore, he would have upchucked right there on her carpet. Archie flew out of the classroom and threw his back up against the lockers, breathing in and out heavily, the confusion and repulsion coming in waves.

Pop! A locker somewhere down the hall groaned. It was a normal sound that happened at random, but it sure was enough to capture his attention and scare him into thinking that someone was there. Had somebody overheard his conversation with Ms. Grundy? No, if they did, they would have been long gone by now to tell the principal.

Little did Archie Andrews know, his old friend Jughead Jones stood just beyond the corner, sucking in his lips to keep himself from panting. Having to run from the music room door to some hidden area was much too quick for him, and if he didn’t want Archie to know he was there and had heard everything, he couldn’t make a sound.

Archie decided to brush it off as a locker making regular locker noises, totally not somebody leaning up against the old, flaking metal and causing it to creak. Deciding he had to get to class, he took off down the seemingly empty hallway, passing by Jughead who, coincidentally and thankfully, was hidden in a darkened corridor. His clothes helped disguise him against the background, and once his redheaded friend had left Jughead’s earshot, Jughead stood there, stunned, reeling over everything he had just learned, and one thought screamed at him louder than the others: _what the fuck are you going to do?_


	3. Chapter 3

“We’re blue, and gold, we’re dynamite! We’ll take you down, and fight the fight!” Betty and Veronica cheered for their River Vixen audition. Veronica being the excited, peppy girl that she was channeled her old Spence cheerleading energy and stepped forward with a white and yellow pom pom raised towards the roof. “Whoo, go Bulldogs!”

Their three judges sat before them, no emotion on their faces as the two girls stepped back into their places. Cheryl hummed, clearly dissatisfied with their performance. “Ladies, where’s the heat? Where’s the sizzle?”

While Veronica thought that their routine was really good, she felt like she had to come up with something quick. This was something Betty desperately wanted, but Cheryl refused to let her because of some reason that nobody other than the redheaded Blossom would understand, so Veronica had to up her A-game. Everybody loved the pretty girls who kissed, right? It tended to pack a punch? Maybe that could help them crawl their way into the cheerleading team.

Turning to look over at Betty, the blonde glanced back with a knowing sorrow forming a frown on her cute face, basically screaming “see? I told you!” However, since when did Veronica Lodge ever back down from a challenge? Oh, that’s right… never.

“Well, you haven’t seen our big finish yet,” Veronica baited, glancing sideways as Betty mouthed, “what?” to her new friend who simply tugged on the yellow sleeve of her tryout shirt to pull her closer. In a whisper, Veronica assured the blonde. “Don’t freak out, just trust me.” Then, she placed a hand on Betty’s right cheek, brought her pink lips to her own, and allowed her left hand to snake its way up to rest just under Betty’s ear.

Cheryl gazed on with annoyance, handing the clipboard to the cheerleader on her right. They _could_ have stopped kissing, yet they hadn’t.

Betty had never kissed a girl before, let alone a guy that wasn’t Archie when she barely knew what a kiss even meant. She’s kissed Archie in her dreams, kissed him as a young girl, but that wasn’t real, and that didn’t really count. This, however, was and did count. And, quite honestly? She liked it. She liked that Veronica’s lips were warm and inviting, trusting and soft, tasting of vanilla chapstick that blended nicely with the soft lavender of her perfume. She liked how Veronica caressed her face, genuinely enjoying the way their lips molded together. But it scared her, because if she liked it, did that mean she was into girls?

Betty pulled away, mouth parted and eyes widened in shock as she wondered what Cheryl had thought of the “big finish” that Veronica had improvised. But at the same time, her mind was cloudy with confusion and she attempted to clear it away. Yet she couldn’t help but think about what had just happened.

Liking the kiss couldn’t mean she was into girls… Betty had never thought of herself being with another girl, marrying one, spending the rest of her life with one. She just liked how safe she felt in Veronica’s embrace, admired what she was willing to do to help get her on the River Vixens, but she definitely was not gay. That, she was sure of.

Veronica was petrified that Betty would hate her. Most girls who were straight would not want another girl kissing them, lasting longer than a second or two, and especially if it weren’t for a dare or some disgusting boy’s pleasure. She wanted to do what she could to help her and Betty get on the team, but if she lost the Cooper girl as a best friend she would hate herself. Right now she had a plan in action, though, so she placed that fear aside, jutted her chin out, and stood proudly before Cheryl, hiding how unnerved she felt by Cheryl’s peeved expression that was almost very clearly armor. But it worked. Although, the more she observed Cheryl, the more tiny details helped improve the “Cheryl is totally gay” notion.

“Check your sell-by date, ladies. Faux lesbian kissing hasn’t been taboo since 1994. So, let’s see if you do better with the interview portion of our audition,” Cheryl announced, and yup, her knowing exactly when lesbian kissing to gain points stopped being taboo was added to those tiny details. “Betty, how’s your sister doing?”

Veronica’s eyebrows pulled into a small frown. She didn’t know Betty had a sister, nor why the question would be a part of an interview to get on the cheerleading team. It was… odd. But she didn’t want to say anything. If she did, she wouldn’t even know what she would say.

Betty murmured, “um, Polly’s fine, thanks for asking…”

With the Blossom’s gaze moving over to Veronica, eyes darting from her head to her toes not in flirtation but with hints of malice, that’s when the New York Elite realized that this wasn’t just an interview. It was clearly some vendetta that Cheryl held against Betty’s sister. “Veronica, has Betty told you about her sister yet?”

“Uh… no.” The dark haired Lodge wanted to call it off, but she figured it was harmless. And pissing off Cheryl when it wasn’t needed wouldn’t bode well for them trying to join her cheer team.

“Go ahead, Betty,” Cheryl smiled viciously, “tell Veronica about your sister and my dear brother.”

Betty sighed, digging her fingernails into her palms in an attempt to keep herself from lashing out. “Polly and Jason dated—”

Interrupting with a scoff, Cheryl exclaimed, “I wouldn’t say dated.”

“It didn’t end well,” Betty continued lowly, even though that all of this happening made that very clear without anybody having to point it out.

“In fact… Jason’s probably why your sister had a nervous breakdown and now lives in a group home, isn’t it?”

Betty clarified, “that’s what my parents think.” In actuality, the Cooper girl had no idea what really happened between Polly and Jason, and why Polly had to leave.

“What do you have to say about that, Betty?” Cheryl urged, “go ahead, the floor is yours. Whatever you’ve been dying to spew about Jason and how he treated Polly, unleash it. Destroy me. Tear me a new one. Rip me to shreds. _Annihilate me_.”

Betty’s fingers curled tightly once more, and the dull, throbbing pain forced her back to reality. She didn’t want to lash out, she didn’t want to do something she would regret. The ideas that pooled with the crescent shaped moons on her palms were bad, and succumbing to them would only make her someone she didn’t want to be. Taking in a sharp breath, she focused herself and tried to find the words to say. “I just…”

“Finally,” Cheryl whispered, rolling her eyes because this apology took way longer than needed. All she wanted was for Betty to apologize for her sister’s mistakes. She wanted Betty to let go and allow the words to pour out of her because Betty Cooper was the perfect good little princess who never spoke up for herself. Finally, she could speak her mind.

“I just wanted to say i’m sorry about what happened to Jason. I can’t even imagine what you and your family must be going through,” Betty said in a monotonous voice, like she were a child forced to apologize for something she didn’t do. Veronica wasn’t sure how to feel about being placed in the middle of this feud between the Coopers and the Blossoms. It was… unsettling.

“Right…” Cheryl cast her gaze down, the feelings she had been mourning over trying to surface. So, she did what Cheryl Blossom always did and pushed it back down, pasted on her bitch face, and moved on pretending it didn’t happen. “Veronica, welcome to the River Vixens! Betty, better luck next time.”

“Wait, what? Why?” Veronica was willing to bite her tongue to keep Cheryl from using anything against their chances of getting onto the River Vixens, but now that she had placed personal feelings over their talent, Veronica wasn’t going to take it any longer. “Because you couldn’t bully Betty into being a bitch?”

“I need girls with fire on my squad,” Cheryl replied, although Veronica didn’t believe it one bit. Now, she understood why everyone kept telling her to leave Cheryl to grieve by her lonesome.

“I know what you need, Cheryl, because I know who you are,” Veronica noticed Cheryl about to object, but allowing that to happen would only tell Cheryl that Veronica was someone she could push around. And she most certainly wasn’t. “You would rather people fear than like you, so you traffic in terror and intimidation. You’re rich, so you’ve never been held accountable, but I am living proof... that certainty, that entitlement that you wear on your head like a crown? It won’t last. Eventually, there will be a reckoning.”

Veronica began to step forward now, closing the distance between them; right now she held all of the power Cheryl desperately clung to like a safety net. She was stripping away her shield, and there was nothing anybody could do about it. Coming to Riverdale may have been a fresh start, a way to leave the queen rich bitch behind, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t stick up for herself and for the people she was beginning to care about.

“Or… maybe that reckoning is now. And maybe that reckoning is me,” she stopped in front of the redhead, proud of the daggers in her glare and the pout of her lips. However, being so close she could see that behind that fiery, bitchy exterior, inside she was hurting and this, the petty desire to push Betty to her limits, was her outlet. She should just leave it be, reign it in and let her grieve, but she had to stand up for herself and Betty, because if not her, who would? “Betty and I come as a matching set. You want one, you take us both. You wanted fire? Well, sorry to tell you, but my specialty is ice.”

Cheryl released a sharp gasp, the realisation that Veronica was a worthy opponent, and she could potentially dethrone her considering it was clear she wasn’t bullshitting settling in. Veronica understood her and why she did what she did, and quite honestly, Cheryl hated how the new girl could get under her skin so easily when nobody else could. She feared that Veronica would take her place. Not like she seemed to want to, but if she did, Cheryl knew she could with a swipe of her charcoal claws for nails. She could ruin everything the Blossom had built all because they were made from the same tree, just different leaves. And to top it all off, why did Cheryl feel her stomach churning at the smell of the Lodge’s minty breath, and the way her voice emanated dominance, even if she was showing Cheryl off in front of all of her Vixens? Something about Veronica Lodge just set her skin on fire, and she couldn’t place whether that was a good or bad thing.

* * *

“Andrews!” Coach Clayton called to the redhead, who immediately sprung to action and jogged his way over to the man overseeing the football players.

Archie moved the chinstrap and slid the helmet off of his head. “What’s up, coach?”

“Here,” the man tossed a blue jersey towards the teenager’s chest, knowing he would catch it effortlessly. He was Archie Andrews, one of the best damn sophomore’s he’s ever seen.

Stretching it out to see, his breathing hitched at the large yellow “9” displayed over the back. “This is Jason’s number.”

“It’s yours now,” coach stated, watching as Archie gazed down at the jersey of his best friend. Of someone he cared about, someone who was dead and he could never possibly live up to his name. Wearing his jersey would be like wearing a legend’s signature item, and he felt unworthy. That he would never be worthy. “Usually, sophomores only play JV. This year, we’ve got an open spot in varsity and from what you’ve been showing us, well… I want you to fill it.”

Archie was truly honored to have this rare opportunity, but it would also mean his other dreams couldn’t be explored and that made his stomach churn with disappointment. Besides, taking over the number of someone he used to secretly be with? That felt like a betrayal. Archie half-heartedly voiced off reasons to decline the offer, “varsity’s got longer practices. More away games.”

“Yeah, it’s a much bigger commitment, but I think you can handle it, Archie,” coach Clayton told the boy, and it was true. There was no one more hard working, no more willing to do whatever it took, no more qualified to take over Jason’s number and do him justice than Archibald Andrews.

Archie allowed an uneasy chuckle to bubble up his throat. “Well, I need to think about it, coach. I…”

At the sophomore’s reluctant stuttering, coach Clayton turned to face him, disbelief written over his face that he wouldn’t automatically say “yes” to this kind of opportunity. “What, you got something better to do?”

“My dad’s company. It’s our family business, and he’s sort of counting on me to help out after school on weekends,” Archie explained, although leaving out the part where he wanted to pursue music, as well. That would definitely not mull over well with the coach because he wouldn’t understand. It truly felt like Archie was Troy Bolton, having to keep his musical side away from his football persona because mixing them would only cause unnecessary tension.

“Hold up, Jackson. Hold the ball!” Coach Clayton screamed, his focus on Archie dwindling as it became clear that he may not take this opportunity. If he didn’t automatically accept, there wasn’t much else he had to say to the kid. Mostly because he couldn’t persuade Archie to agree by threatening him, or backing him into a corner where he had no other choice. Besides, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Still, though, he held out hope that the Andrews’ kid would accept. “You know what, why don’t you sleep on it?”

With that, the coach took off towards the rest of the football team, calling to gather them while Archie stood frozen with his wild mind mulling over multiple different topics. Football, music, Grundy, Jason, Sweetwater River… never had he been so wrapped up in his own head that he wasn’t able to sit down and sort it out by himself. But he could never bring anybody else into his problems, especially Betty even if she was the only person he knew who would have his back, who would know just what to say to declutter his brain. He refused to unload his problems onto her because knowing how she was as a person, they would become hers, too. And that wasn’t fair to Betty.

* * *

Veronica smiled proudly as she zipped up the River Vixen uniform onto Betty’s slender figure, wiping through the creases as if they even existed with the perfection and care that Veronica had put into helping her new best friend put on her cheerleading uniform, which in Betty’s life had been a dream of hers. Turning the blonde around to face her, the two girls giggled excitedly. “Perfect! Very Betty Draper season one.”

Betty nodded in acknowledgement, gazing at the girl as she turned around to fix her own uniform in the tall mirror steadied between the small wall that separated the rows of lockers. Eyes boring into the back of the Lodge's dark hair, she bit down on her lip, wanting to ask about the kiss. But she didn’t want to ask straightforward. “Hey, Veronica…” leading the girl slightly away from where they were as a cue to be more quiet, Betty continued. “Why did you defend me? I know the crowd you ran with in New York. Why are you being so… nice?”

“Let’s get some fresh air first, shall we?”

Veronica looped her arm through Betty’s and together they walked in silence towards the football field, opting to slowly circle the track for another moment or two. Finally, Veronica answered Betty’s inquiry. “When my father got arrested, it was the worst thing ever. All these trolls started writing horrible things about us. We’d get letters and emails saying that my dad was a thief, my mom was a clueless socialite, and that I was the spoiled rich-bitch ice princess. And what hurt the most about it was that it was true.” Veronica hated seeing Betty’s eyebrows crunch at the idea of her new friend being described like that, because it was hard to shed who you used to be in such little time, and she figured the Cooper girl was wondering when “old Veronica” would try to take over. She fought down the idea that she pondered the same thing every once in a while. “I was like Cheryl. Hell, I was _worse_ than Cheryl. So, when my mom said we were moving to Riverdale, I made a pact with myself to use this as an opportunity to become a better version of myself, the person i’ve always wanted to be but wasn’t able to back in New York.”

“That’s a lot of pressure,” Betty sympathized with a tug of her lips. She was constantly under that kind of pressure, and while she had no one to lean on, maybe now she could. She might not have been fond of the girl upon first meeting, but she was warming up to her very quickly. Betty figured since Veronica had said something she probably wouldn’t tell anybody else, she had to tell something just as personal. “When Polly and Jason got together, it meant everything to her and nothing to him. And things got super intense and weird and toxic, and my mom turned on Polly. She said that Polly wasn’t her daughter anymore, said all of these awful things to and about her. Jason may have hurt Polly, but it was my mom who broke her.”

Veronica gently placed her head onto Betty’s shoulders to show her that she was sorry for having to go through all of that family drama, and that she was there for her. The two smoothed into a bout of silence, and they simply watched the football players jog across the field. They even managed to find Archie, mostly because he had taken off his helmet and the sun shone over his red hair. Veronica cleared her throat, glancing up at the girl, “so, when are you going to ask Archie to the dance?”

“I’m not sure… I mean, my brain is still foggy from kissing a girl for the first time, so any and all help to keep me on track would be nice,” Betty teased gently, sucking in her lips as she thought over what had happened in the gym. She could still feel the pressure on her mouth, the way the Lodge’s tongue tasted, and it probably wouldn’t relent until later that day after she allowed herself to really, truly realize that it had happened.

“I’m glad I have that effect on you, Elizabeth Cooper,” Veronica giggled. “Hey, how about you, me, and Kevin all meet up later today at your house or something? Then, Operation-Betty-Asks-Archie-To-The-Dance is a go!”

“Oh, God… I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“Nope!”

* * *

“Why are you two acting so… giddy?” Kevin inquired, narrowing his gaze suspiciously while he absentmindedly munched on snacks that Betty had brought up from her pantry. Chocolate covered pretzels, a large family-sized bag of chips, some packs of Scooby Doo fruit snacks, and a couple of bottles of water from the fridge were splayed around the pink bedroom. Veronica noted just how fitting the theme was for Betty, even if she probably wanted to change it. It was obvious she chose all of this when she was younger, and she’d most likely envision a change in style, yet even after all this time her bedroom fit her personality. Veronica silently cooed at the multitude of pictures containing Betty and Archie, cheeks pressed together and smiles wide and inviting, and some of Kevin from what appeared to be the last few years. Veronica wished she could have had a normal childhood like they did.

In the background of some of their iconic best friend pictures was Jughead, clearly feeling out of place and intruding, and she felt for him. Many of her friends back in New York would really just use her for her status, and while that wasn’t the exact same, it still sucked to feel like you didn’t really belong. Jughead smiled, but his eyes gave away just how hurt his status in their friendship made him feel.

Kevin’s low, knowing tone brought Veronica out of her stupor. “Other than Betty’s new cheerleading uniform, is there something I missed?”

“Well, if you count me kissing a girl and Veronica shutting Cheryl down in front of everyone as something to miss, then, yeah, you missed a lot!” Betty turned up the volume of her radio which previously was humming in the background to drown out any silence and began to sashay in her uniform. Never had she thought she’d be able to wear one without stealing it somehow, which even then she wouldn’t dare. Cheryl would have her head; but here she was with her own uniform, her own place in the River Vixens, and she had to thank Veronica for it. Betty felt awful for judging Veronica based on what she had heard about the girl and how she spoke about the places she held so dear upon first meeting. Hopefully, she could find a way to pay it back.

Flipping her ponytail to drape over her shoulder, Betty gazed at herself in the mirror and smiled genuinely at her reflection for what had to have been the first time in forever, honestly. Normally, she was abashed at her appearance, at her boring life void of risk and fun and being a normal teenager. She wished to be more like Veronica, and she felt like she was on that path now and it filled the Cooper girl with determination and an excitement she only seemed to feel a little bit of when she was with Archie. Who would have thought that her mundane life would shift upon meeting a girl she didn’t even like at first.

“Hold on, you kissed who?” Kevin’s mouth fell in awe, eyelashes fluttering as he blinked over and over again in utter awe, unable to believe that his best friend, a girl he perceived as the straightest straight to ever straight, kissed a girl. After being slack-jawed for a whole minute while Betty danced around joyously and Veronica laughed at his long reaction, he gulped down the shock and stuttered out, “what, was this some weird initiation kind of thing to join the Vixens? If so, that’s definitely queerbaiting and I will be suing for my emotions being played with. Anyways, onto more important matters: who did you kiss? How was it? How long did it last?”

Betty wiggled her eyebrows in the long mirror, winking over at Veronica as she met her humorous, crinkled gaze. Veronica stifled a laugh, biting down on her bottom lip consciously. Quickly, Kevin pieced together why the two girls were glowing when he got to the house, and now their fits of boisterous giggles made sense.

“I kissed Betty because Cheryl wasn’t having any of our routine, probably because of whatever grudge she holds against Betty’s sister,” Veronica waved her hand around at the same time as her eyes rolled, finding it pathetic that the Blossom would let something get in the way of allowing two beautiful, talented ladies onto the cheer team all because of some grudge that didn’t even involve the two. “And I had to improvise… Anyways, after harassing Betty, she told me I was welcomed onto the team and Betty wasn’t, but I refused to let that happen. So… I may have told her Betty and I are a matching set and if she wants one of us, she has to take both of us.”

Betty flew around and pointed a finger at the Lodge, “don’t forget about the iconic ice line!”

“The what?” Kevin cocked an eyebrow.

“Cheryl told us she wanted fire, a sizzle in her River Vixens that apparently we didn’t seem to have. I mockingly apologized to her, saying that my specialty was ice, not fire,” Veronica shrugged nonchalantly, as if it were no big deal. And in a way, it was. But to these two friends before her, it was everything, it seemed. “It was really nice to stand up for Betty and for myself, and use my bitchiness for good, but the closer I got to her, the more I felt bad for Cheryl. She is definitely a bitch—it takes one to know one—but she’s hurting and the only way she knows how to ignore it is to go after other people.”

“All she has to do is talk to someone,” Kevin huffed, “instead of coming after me for being gay, she should just talk to the school councelor, or something. You know, like a normal person.”

Veronica frowned, “i’ve been her, Kevin. It’s not as easy as it sounds, trust me.”

Betty sensed that the conversation was going to turn the room into an awkward silence, so she cleared her throat and turned the music down a little bit so she wouldn’t have to raise her voice. Bouncing into the bean bag in the corner of her room, placed between the spaces Veronica and Kevin took up, she grinned wildly and playfully pushed his arm. “To answer your other questions, Kev, the kiss was… interesting. It was incredible, but, no, I am not a lesbian, or anything.”

“Damn. You of all people queerbaited me,” Kevin pretended to sob, wiping underneath his eyes. “Anyone but you…”

“Shut up!” Betty snickered, shaking her head. “Whoever Veronica gets with, though, will be very, very lucky.” She paused for a moment, a wicked glint shining in her blue eyes. “Speaking of, is there anyone you’ve taken a liking to?”

“It’s my first day,” Veronica pointed out, although she knew that that wasn’t a real excuse. It definitely wouldn’t have been back in New York, so why would it be here, too? With the unamused looks from Kevin and Betty, she sighed, giving in. “I don’t really like anyone. I mean, are people at school kind of hot? Yes, but the real question is: can I see myself dating anyone? No, not yet.”

“Really? Not even Cheryl? I expected an enemies to lovers romance with you two to blossom— _pun intended_ ,” Kevin smirked, sucking in his cheeks. “I mean, if you’re what’ll level her out, i’ll be the first to help guide you two to get together.”

“Cheryl is most likely straight,” Betty commented, taking a chocolate covered pretzel and popping it into her mouth.

“Oh, please, I went to an all-girls private school, Betty. Cheryl is totally into girls,” Veronica sighed matter-of-factly, taking in Betty and Kevin’s smiles, how laid back they were, and it made her realize that she never really had a friendship like this. Not unless the girl she was friends with was also messing around in her bed. Maybe she had never had a real friendship, not until now. At least, she hoped this was real. She hoped that they didn’t secretly want something out of her. She would be devastated if that were true. “Besides, from what you told me about her, her parents are probably strict and homophobic, and therefore she’s just trying to survive. I’ve seen it many times. Hell, I did it before I basically gave my parents the middle finger and decided I was going to love who I loved without their approval.”

“You’re such an icon,” Kevin puffed out his bottom lip adoringly, placing his hands over his heart as he thought back to when he came out. Or, rather, when he was outed to the entire school and his father. “At least no one outed you to the entire school, and then your sheriff father.”

“Oh, my God, no!” Veronica gasped, horrified at the mere thought of it. “No, please tell me you’re joking… who’s the asshole?”

“He was a jock on the football team named Chad—mediocre name. Gross, I know—we were secretly hooking up and when I refused to… do something… with him, he sent our Bumble conversation to the entire school,” Kevin shook his head bitterly at the memory. “He photoshopped it no one would know it was him, and then one night for parent-teacher conferences, we walked out of Ms. Davis’ literacy class and a group of the football team asked my dad how it was to have a dick-sucker under the sheriff’s roof.”

“Is he still in school?” Veronica grit her teeth and could feel her blood boiling imagining poor Kevin having to go through that. It was a nightmare of hers before she came out, her enemy telling everyone that she was bisexual before she was ready. It was robbing someone of one of the few things they have control over, and if that Chad boy was still going to Riverdale High, Veronica was going to beat his ass into the ground. Even if this was years ago, she at least had to see if he was still an asshole, because if so, she could ruin him.

“No, thankfully he moved away that summer. I’m not entirely sure why, but there was a rumor that someone on the football field told Chad’s mom and she was so angry and disappointed that they moved,” Kevin waved Veronica off, like petting a dog who’s growling at a person who they think is about to hurt their owner. Basically, he was saying “down, girl!” with a thankful smile towards her care for what he went through. “But I don’t believe that. If it was Archie, I would have known because he’d tell Betty and she’d tell me, but nobody else would have done that for me, so I think it was just pure luck.”

“Oh… well, whether the rumor is true or not, i’m glad he’s gone. Sucks I don’t get to ruin his life, but, oh well, hopefully he’s figured himself out and finds you later in life somehow and apologizes,” Veronica reaches forward to rub Kevin’s shoulder sympathetically.

He nodded in acknowledgement before perking up. “So, when I was invited over here, I was told there was an operation?”

“Oh! That’s right,” Veronica turned to Betty—who groaned in embarrassment—with a wicked smile. “Betty over here is afraid to ask Archie to the dance, so I have officially created Operation-Betty-Asks-Archie-To-The-Dance!”

“What if he says no?” Betty covered her face with her sleeves, most likely to hide the pink seeping into her cheeks.

“If he rejects one of the most gorgeous girls i’ve ever seen, then Archie is an idiot,” Veronica smacked her lips, “so, do either of you know when he gets home from practice?”

“Around five, I think,” Betty murmured, “but I don’t want to bother him after practice. He’ll be tired and sweaty and irritable and—”

“Betty, stop making excuses,” Kevin chastised. “So, we have about five to ten minutes until he gets home, right? How about we help you prep, and we’ll be here to celebrate when he ultimately says yes.”

“And if he says no?” The silence afterwards didn’t help Betty’s nerves, but Veronica knew that if Archie was dumb enough to say no, she would go over and try to knock some sense into him. If that didn’t work, well, her and Betty could go together, instead.

“Look, Betty, you’ll never know unless you ask. It’s horrifying, I know, but asking is the hard part,” Kevin prompted, “so pretend i’m Archie and ask my hot redheaded ass to the dance.”

Veronica leaned back in the tan beanbag chair she sat in and grabbed a packet of Scooby Doo fruit snacks to munch on. However this would go, she figured it would be comedic.

Clearing her throat, Betty awkwardly looked into Kevin’s eyes and gently placed her hand in his. “Hey, Arch… I know you just got back from practice, but I wanted to ask you a question.”

“Sure, Betts,” Kevin smiled, prodding her on by raising his eyebrows. “What is it?”

Betty’s blue eyes averted to Veronica for encouragement. It was awkward, especially considering she was technically talking to Kevin and not Archie. Veronica mouthed, “you got this!” and it wasn’t much but it was just enough to get Betty to play out the scenario.”

“I was wondering… if you…” the blonde messed with her fingers nervously. “If you would go to the dance with me?” Kevin opened his mouth to speak, though. she quickly cut him off. “As friends, of course!”

“Betty!” Veronica groaned under her breath. “Not as friends, as more. You have a crush on him.”

Kevin sent the Lodge a pointed look, telling her to be quiet so he could continue. “Oh, my God, Betty… yes. Of course i’ll go to the dance with you!” Spinning the blonde around, Kevin stepped out of the scenario. “And then you two will kiss and it’ll be happily ever after.”

Veronica’s gaze averted to the window where she noticed the curtain next door closed. They had missed Archie coming home, and there was no time to play the rejection scenario. It was now or never, and both Kevin and Veronica preferred now. “We don’t have time, Archie is already in his bedroom. I saw him close his curtain.”

“Oh, God…” Betty’s eyes widened in horror. “I don’t even want to go to the dance anymore, I can’t go over there and ask him to the dance. I just can’t! He must be tired from practice, the last thing he’ll want to think about is some dumb dance—”

“Betty, stop overreacting,” Kevin ceased the girl’s frantic thoughts by placing his hands on her shoulders and forcing her to look at him, making her unconsciously see that he wasn’t worried, and therefore she had nothing to worry about, either. “You’re going to go over there and ask the boy you’ve been in love with since you could crawl to the dance, and whether he says yes or no, Veronica and I have your back, alright?”

“Yeah. I have you two… i’ll be fine,” Betty nodded to herself, determined now more than ever. “I can do this. You and Veronica have my back. Right, V?”

Popping the last fruit snack into her mouth, she crumpled the package in her fist and smiled encouragingly. “Of course I have your back. I mean, we’ve kissed, B. That is the highest trust in a blossoming friendship like ours.”

A short laugh escaped Betty’s lips. “Wish me luck, i’m going over there.”

“Good luck!”

* * *

Archie barely even noticed the new raven haired beauty sitting in Betty’s room before he closed the curtains. His mind was much too jambled with football and music and Jason and Grundy. He couldn’t really bring himself to wonder how Betty had gone from jealousy and dislike to best friends with Veronica. Archie slid his shirt off and flopped onto his bed, gazing at the popcorn ceiling and finding patterns in it while his mind raced.

Normally, he’d be ecstatic to get invited to be on JV because football was his life and someone in his grade would never have that chance, but he wanted to pursue music and if he accepted the invite he would never have time to do one the few things that kept him sane. And getting Jason’s jersey on top of that just… didn’t sit right with him. He tried not to show how devastated he truly felt over Jason’s death, and now in the private of his own home, a tear shed down his cheek, and then they just kept coming. Him and Jason fought at the beginning of summer—Jason and Archie were kind of a thing, but then Jason revealed he had gotten Polly Cooper pregnant and broke things off. Archie understood, but it still hurt him because they had been talking about making their relationship official and public. And now he was dead, and both him and Polly were left with a hollow hole Jason took up in their hearts.

Jason was the second person to know about Archie’s rising passion for music, and he egged him on to do what he loved. Archie can’t say he feels a little disheartened from music now that he was dead, and adding on the fact that he also wanted to pursue music because of “Gracie." But he kept the fire for the subject alive by remembering Jason’s words: “if you want to do it, bro, just do it. Don’t let anybody or anything stop you from doing what you love.” So, that’s what he did. He wasn’t going to let this pedophile ruin something— _anything_ good in his life.

Speaking of “Gracie” or Geraldine Grundy—

 _Knock, knock, knock!_ Archie subconsciously smiled, knowing that rhythmic knock from anywhere. _Betty._

Sitting up from his bed, he opened his door and called, “coming!” before bounding down the stairwell. Turning the handle, Archie ran his hand through his sweaty hair and mentally made a note to himself about how he should shower. “Hey, Betts. What’s up?”

It was clear as day that she was nervous. He could tell immediately because she was playing with her fingers and biting down on the corner of her lower lip. Telltale signs of Betty he had figured out growing up with her. She was never nervous, not with him. “Hey, what’s wrong?” Grabbing at her hands for comfort, Archie furrowed his thick eyebrows. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“I, uh… I…” her gaze shifted up to the right, and at the same time avoiding his exposed chest, almost as if speaking to someone through expression. He turned to see Veronica and Kevin giving a thumbs up to Betty before they ducked out of view. “Sorry. I, um… I wanted to ask you something, Arch.”

“Okay…” he was actually quite scared, because whatever it was had the most strongest girl he’s ever met shaking as if it was snowing in that moment, but it was shining and bright, and while he was still hot from practice, he could feel the warm breeze against his forehead. So it wasn’t the cold making her shiver.

Betty blew out a puff of air to gather herself before speaking. “Here goes nothing. Uh, would you like to go to the dance with me, Arch?”

Her sparkly blue eyes concentrated on him from under her eyelashes, fear of rejection clear on the way she stood and how reserved she became. She was beautiful, especially with the wind blowing the stray hairs of her ponytail forward and the golden sun illuminating the profile of her face. He desperately wanted to go with her, but he wouldn’t be able to give her a fun time with his mind mulling over so many things. It wouldn’t be fair to her.

Archie slipped his hands from hers and swallowed thickly. “Betty… i’m sorry, I would love to but I just have so much on my mind right now and a dance is the last thing I can think about.”

“Oh…” Betty deflated, although keeping her faltering smile as if it would give the illusion that her spirit wasn’t breaking into pieces. “That’s alright. I understand, you must have a lot of homework. And you have to be focused on football and such. I’ll just bring Veronica and Kevin as my dates.”

He wanted to make her feel better, but how could he without letting her in on everything he had going on? He didn’t want her to know about Grundy, he’d quite honestly rather get killed in a construction accident than tell Betty he fell victim to a pedophile. So, instead of reaching out for her as she shuffled back towards her house, he sighed to himself and closed the door. “And the award for biggest asshole in the entire universe goes to Archie Andrews...”

Leaning against the front door, he let out a puff of air and glanced at the ceiling, feeling like utter shit for what he felt he had to do. He loved Betty, has for his whole life. Of course, since nothing has come of it he’s fallen for others but it would always be there. How could he fall out of love with Elizabeth Cooper, the girl next door? The girl who was always there for him when he needed her, who held his hand without a care in the world and who’s smile shone like the sun on a hot summer day. She was… perfect in his eyes. And as much as he wished he could tell her everything, let her in on his dirty little secrets, it would change her perspective of him and that was one thing he never wanted to lose. To her, Archie was her best friend, but if she found out? He’d be the most disgusting human being on the planet, just like Miss Grundy said.

His body jumped in shock as the door jolted with the poundings on the front door. Definitely not Betty. Too harsh, too confrontational, too angry. Even if Betty was upset, she would never show it, especially like this. So, he stood up, wiped his sweatpants off a bit, and opened the door to find the one and only Veronica Lodge standing at his doorstep, arms crossed and daggers of ice piercing into his irises. Never had he understood why someone could be so scared of an expression, but right now he did. If looks could kill, he’d be twenty feet under the ground.

“V-Veronica?” Archie stuttered out, taken aback. “What are… what are you doing here?” Of course he knew, she was here on behalf of Betty and boy was she pissed. “Look, just let me explain, alright?”

“You’ve got one minute, Andrews,” Veronica locked her jaw and raised her eyebrows impatiently. Archie swallowed thickly, unsure what to say, really. “Well? Let’s hear your excuse.”

“I have some… _things_ … going on that are rattling around in my head and i’m not really in a mood to have fun. Betty deserves to be happy and enjoy herself at the dance, not worry for me. She knows me probably better than I know myself, and even if I tried to hide it, she would be able to sense it,” Archie murmured, unable to help the small tug of a smile at the corner of his lips as he thought about just how well Betty knew him, how she could always know when he was upset. “Believe me, she’d be better off dancing with anybody other than me.”

Veronica chewed on the inside of her cheeks in thought, wanting to stay angry at the redhead but also sympathizing with him. Many times back in New York, she would have those crappy days with so much shit on her mind where she would rather stay home, cuddle into her fuzzy blanket, and watch Netflix. Anything but go out to a club. But her friends would guilt her into going, and despite how awful that sounds, she always did end up enjoying herself and temporarily forgetting what was eating at her.

With a sigh, she dropped the anger that swirled inside of her the second she noticed Betty had come back crying and tenderly grabbed a hold of Archie’s hand. She swallowed harshly as his warm grasp squeezed hers, almost like he craved to have someone to coddle him, to release his worries to, and he would be totally okay with that being her, which was unexpected. But she would not… she could not be that woman. She didn’t want to mess anything up with Betty, so if Archie wanted to talk to someone he would have to find somebody else. “Everyone has shit going on in their lives, Archie. I don’t know you or Betty that well, or your friendship, but what I do know is that she likes you a lot. To her, you just being there with her as her date would be enough, even if you’re having a bad day.”

“I wouldn’t want to ruin her experience at the dance—”

“There will be plenty of dances throughout our years at Riverdale High!” Veronica groaned, “dude, back in New York, whenever I was having a shitty day and all I wanted was to stay home and wallow in my thoughts, my friends would force me to go out and have fun, and while I despised them at the time, over the course of the night I would realize I was genuinely enjoying myself. Trust me, it seems like the last thing you want to do with whatever you have going on, but it’ll help take your mind off of it for just a little while.”

Archie scratched the back of his neck, “I’m not so sure…”

“Look, all I know is that Kevin and I waited by the door in hopes that you said yes and Betty would come back beaming, but instead she came in with tears about to fall down her cheeks and you are the only person who can make her feel better,” Veronica ripped her hand from Archie’s grip, too annoyed and angry at his reluctance to notice the way his features flinched as she tore away. “Everyone has shit going on, you’re not special. But I guess if you’re able to hurt one of your friends like that because you can’t talk to someone, then be my guest. But if you show up at that dance begging for another chance, I will kill you myself.”

Archie gulped, watching as the new girl stormed over to Betty’s house. The door didn’t slam like he expected. About twenty or so seconds afterwards, in the corner of his eyes he noticed that the curtains to Betty’s room closed hastily, and he knew he had made a big mistake by the way his stomach dropped. Veronica was right; everyone had stuff going on. That was life, and to hurt Betty, a girl he cared about very deeply, because of it? He had to figure out a way to make it up to her.


End file.
